W I 



FROM THE LIBRARY 
OF 

H. L.TEVIS 

AT ALMA 





m 



SONGS FROM THE GOLDEN 
GATE 



BY 



IN/FcOOLBRITH 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
WILLIAM KEITH 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

re&j, Camtirib^e 
1907 



Copyright, 1895, 
BY INA COOLBRITH. 

All rights reserved. 



THIRD IMPRESSION 



-croft Library 



TO 

EDMUND CLAKENCE STEDMAN 



CONTENTS. 



PAQB 

AT THE HILL'S BASE . .... . . ix 

CALIFORNIA . . . ..' . . . 1 
IN BLOSSOM-TIME . . ... . . . 7 

A HOPE . . . . . . ; . . . 9 

AN ANSWER > . 10 

A PERFECT DAY . . . . . . .11 

THE POET . 13 

LONGING . .14 

Two 16 

FEBRUARY .17 

MY "CLOTH OF GOLD" . . ..... 18 

WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME ... . 21 

THE MOTHER'S GRIEF . . * ' . . . 23 
RETROSPECT . . . . . , . . .24 

MARCH . ... . . . * . . 25 

AT SET OF SUN . . -. -. . . . . .26 

To-MORROW IS TOO FAR AWAY . . ' ., . 27 

JUST FOR A DAY . . . . . > . . .28 

THE MARIPOSA LILY 30 

LOVE IN LITTLE 31 

No MORE . . 32 

WHILE LILIES BUD AND BLOW . ... . .33 

HOW LOOKED THE EARTH? . ... . . 35 

WITHHELD . . . . . . . . . .37 

IN TIME OF FALLING LEAVES . . ... 39 

I CANNOT COUNT MY LlFE A LOSS . . . . .41 

NOT YET , ... 42 

IF ONLY . 43 



VI CONTENTS. 

IN THE GRAND CANON . . . 44 

A SONG OF THE SUMMER WIND . , . .45 

A FANCY . . . . .',...... . . 48 

CUPID KISSED ME . .... . .49 

RESPITE . . . .. . . . . . . 51 

THE SEA-SHELL 52 

SUMMER PAST . . . . . . . 53 

LEAF AND BLADE . .* . . .55 

THE CAPTIVE OF THE WHITE CITY . . . 57 

WITH A WREATH OF LAUREL . . . . .61 

LOVE-SONG . .. . . . ... . . 63 

THE YEARS . . ... ... . > .64 

FROM LIVING WATERS . . . ... .. 65 

SAILED . ,. .. '...'', .. . . . 70 

AT THE DAWN . . . 71 

OWNERSHIP . . . . ,. . . .72 

IN THE POUTS ,.,.. 73 

Two PICTURES , . . . . . , . . .75 

AT REST . ..,.,..... .. . . 78 

LONELINESS. ,. ,. . ,, . . . . . 79 

BESIDE THE DEAD . . * ^* . 80 

THE ROAD TO SCHOOL . . . A . .81 

SIESTA . . .... . . . . . 84 

THE DAY OF OUR LORD .,,.... 85 

WHO KNOWETH ? . ..... .. '; . 88 

A NEW LEAF ,. ... .. . . . . . .89 

"UNTO THE DAY" . . .. , , . V '. 90 

UNBOUND . . . , / , . . . .91 

" ONE TOUCH OF NATURE " . . . . * . 94 

MARAH .... >, . . . . .95 

THE COMING ..... ... . . 97 

MEMORIAL POEM: DECORATION DAY . . . .99 

REBUKE . . .... . . . * . 104 

AT THE CLOSE . . .. . , . . . . 105 

FREEDOM. . . . -* . ; . . 106 

FREDERICK III. OF GERMANY . . , , . 108 

UNGATHERED . , > 109 



CONTENTS. Vll 

THE LOST NOTE . V"" . . . . . .111 

THE UNKNOWN GREAT . . . 113 

AT PEACE . .114 

THE ART OF WILLIAM KEITH * . . , . 115 
THE BROOK . . . . . .... 116 

A PRAYER . .... ... 118 

QUESTION AND ANSWER . ; . H9 
OBLIVION. . . . ^ ... 121 

LA FLOR DEL SALVADOR . . . .... 124 

TO-DAY'S SINGING . . ."- . ... . 126 

FRUITIONLESS . . . . . . * . . 128 

AFTER THE WINTER RAIN . . . . . * 130 

DAISIES * . . 131 

AN EMBLEM . . . ... . . .132 

HELEN HUNT JACKSON . ... . 133 

A GOOD-BY . ... v . . . .135 

SUFFICIENT . . . . . * . . . 136 

To A NEW BEATRICE . . * . . . 138 

SOMETIME . . . . . . . . . .139 

FORGOTTEN . . ... . . . 140 

QUEST . . .141 

THE Music OF "MACBETH" . . ... .142 

SUMMONS . . . . ...... . 143 

IN ADVERSITY . . . . . . . . . 144 

MIDWINTER EAST AND WEST ... . . . 146 

THE FADED FLOWER . . . . . . 149 

MILLENNIUM . . . . . . . . . 150 

COPA DE ORO . . . . . ' . 152 

EDWIN BOOTH . . . .... . . . 153 

THE FLIGHT OF SONG . . . . . . .154 

MEADOW-LARKS . . . . 155 

CHRISTMAS EVE . . . * * 156 

A MEMORY . . . . . . , . . . 157 

FULFILLMENT . . . 158 

A LAST WORD ... ... 159 



AT THE HILUS BASE. 

O Singers, up the heights of gold 

Whereon Song dwells with thoughts that run 
To music, as the flowers unfold 

And gladden to the sun, 

Is there, amid the fadeless bloom 

Of rose and bay, low at your feet, 
A little room, O ye, with whom 

The lowliest place were sweet ? 

A reed within some river-bed 

That grew, with drifting weeds afloat, 

A reed by rude hands fashioned 
To pipe one slender note, 

Lo, such am I! yet crave the grace 

To rest with thee, divinest Song, 
A moment's space within the ways 

That I have loved so long ! 



SONGS FROM THE GOLDEN GATE, 



CALIFORNIA. 

WAS it the sigh and shiver of the leaves ? 
Was it the murmur of the meadow brook, 
That in and out the reeds and water weeds 
Slipped silverly, and on their tremulous keys 
Uttered her many melodies ? Or voice 
Of the far sea, red with the sunset gold, 
That sang within her shining shores, and sang 
Within the Gate, that in the sunset shone 
A gate of fire against the outer world ? 

For, ever as I turned the magic page 

Of that old song the old, blind singer sang 

Unto the world, when it and song were young 

The ripple of the reeds, or odorous, 

Soft sigh of leaves, or voice of the far sea 

A mystical, low murmur, tremulous 

Upon the wind, came in with musk of rose, 

The salt breath of the waves, and far, faint smell 

Of laurel up the slopes of Tamalpais. . . . 

" Am I less fair, am I less fair than these, 
Daughters of far-off seas ? 



2 CALIFORNIA. 

Daughters of far-off shores, bleak, over-blown 
With foam of fretful tides, with wail and moan 
Of waves, that toss wild hands, that clasp and beat 
Wild, desolate hands above the lonely sands, 
Printed no more with pressure of their feet : 
That chase no more the light feet flying swift 

Up golden sands, nor lift 
Foam fingers white unto their garment hem, 

And flowing hair of them. 

" For these are dead : the fair, great queens are dead ! 
The long hair's gold a dust the wind bloweth 

Wherever it may list ; 

The curved lips, that kissed 
Heroes and kings of men, a dust that breath, 
Nor speech, nor laughter, ever quickeneth ; 

And all the glory sped 

From the large, marvelous eyes, the light whereof 
Wrought wonder in their hearts, desire, and love ! 

And wrought not any good : 
But strife, and curses of the gods, and flood, 

And fire and battle-death ! 

Am I less fair, less fair, 

Because that my hands bear 
Neither a sword, nor any flaming brand, 
To blacken and make desolate my land, 
But on my brows are leaves of olive boughs, 

And in mine arms a dove ! 

" Sea-born and goddess, blossom of the foam, 
Pale Aphrodite, shadowy as a mist 



CALIFORNIA. 3 

Not any sun hath kissed ! 

Tawny of limb J roam, 
The dusks of forests dark within my hair ; 

The far Yosemite, 
For garment and for covering of me, 

Wove the white foam and mist, 
The amber and the rose and amethyst 
Of her wild fountains, shaken loose in air. 
And I am of the hills and of the sea : 
Strong with the strength of my great hills, and calm 
With calm of the fair sea, whose billowy gold 
Girdles the land whose queen and love I am ! 

Lo ! am I less than thou, 
That with a sound of lyres, and harp-playing, 

Not any voice doth sing 
The beauty of mine eyelids and my brow ? 
Nor hymn in all my fair and gracious ways, 

And lengths of golden days, 
The measure and the music of my praise ? 

" Ah, what indeed is this 
Old land beyond the seas, that ye should miss 
For her the grace and majesty of mine ? 

Are not the fruit and vine 
Fair on my hills, and in my vales the rose ? 

The palm-tree and the pine 
Strike hands together under the same skies 

In every wind that blows. 

What clearer heavens can shine 
Above the land whereon the shadow lies 
Of her dead glory, and her slaughtered kings, 



CALIFORNIA. 

And lost, evanished gods ? 

Upon my fresh green sods 
No king has walked to curse and desolate : 
But in the valleys Freedom sits and sings, 

And on the heights above ; 
Upon her brows the leaves of olive boughs, 

And in her arms a dove ; 
And the great hills are pure, undesecrate, 

White with their snows untrod, 
And mighty with the presence of their God ! 

" Hearken, how many years 
I sat alone, I sat alone and heard 

Only the silence stirred 
By wind and leaf, by clash of grassy spears, 
And singing bird that called to singing bird. 

Heard but the savage tongue 
Of my brown savage children, that among 
The hills and valleys chased the buck and doe, 

And round the wigwam fires 
Chanted wild songs of their wild savage sires, 
And danced their wild, weird dances to and fro, 
And wrought their beaded robes of buffalo. 

Day following upon day, 
Saw but the panther crouched upon the limb, 

Smooth serpents, swift and slim, 
Slip through the reeds and grasses, and the bear 

Crush through his tangled lair 
Of chapparal, upon the startled prey ! 

" Listen, how I have seen 
Flash of strange fires in gorge and black ravine ; 



CALIFORNIA. 5 

Heard the sharp clang of steel, that came to drain 

The mountain's golden vein 
And laughed and sang, and sang and laughed again, 
Because that * now,' I said, ' I shall be known ! 

I shall not sit alone ; 
But reach my hands unto my sister lands ! 

And they ? Will they not turn 
Old, wondering dim eyes to me, and yearn 

Aye, they will yearn, in sooth, 
To my glad beauty, and my glad fresh youth ! ' 

" What matters though the morn 
Redden upon my singing fields of corn ! 
What matters though the wind's unresting feet 

Ripple the gold of wheat, 

And my vales run with wine, 

And on these hills of mine 
The orchard boughs droop heavy with ripe fruit ? 

When with nor sound of lute 
Nor lyre, doth any singer chant and sing 

Me, in my life's fair spring : 
The matin song of me in my young day ? 
But all my lays and legends fade away 
From lake and mountain to the farther hem 
Of sea, and there be none to gather them. 

" Lo ! I have waited long ! 
How longer yet must my strung harp be dumb, 

Ere its great master come ? 
Till the fair singer comes to wake the strong, 
Rapt chords of it unto the new, glad song ! 



CALIFORNIA. 

Him a diviner speech 

My song-birds wait to teach : 

The secrets of the field 

My blossoms will not yield 

To other hands than his ; 

And, lingering for this, 
My laurels lend the glory of their boughs 

To crown no narrower brows. 
For on his lips must wisdom sit with youth, 
And in his eyes, and on the lids thereof, 

The light of a great love 

And on his forehead, truth ! " . . . 

Was it the wind, or the soft sigh of leaves, 
Or sound of singing waters ? Lo, I looked, 
And saw the silvery ripples of the brook, 
The fruit upon the hills, the waving trees, 
And mellow fields of harvest ; saw the Gate 
Burn in the sunset ; the thin thread of mist 
Creep white across the Saucelito hills ; 
Till the day darkened down the ocean rim, 
The sunset purple slipped from Tamalpais, 
And bay and sky were bright with sudden stars. 



IN BLOSSOM TIME. 

IT 's O my heart, my heart, 

To be out in the sun and sing 
To sing and shout in the fields about, 

In the balm and the blossoming ! 

Sing loud, O bird in the tree ; 

bird, sing loud in the sky, 

And honey-bees, blacken the clover beds 
There is none of you glad as I. 

The leaves laugh low in the wind, 

Laugh low, with the wind at play ; 
And the odorous call of the flowers all 

Entices my soul away ! 

For O but the world is fair, is fair 

And O but the world is sweet ! 
I will out in the gold of the blossoming mould, 

And sit at the Master's feet. 

And the love my heart would speak, 

1 will fold in the lily's rim, 

That th' lips of the blossom, more pure and meek, 
May offer it up to Him. 

7 



8 IN BLOSSOM TIME. 

Then sing in the hedgerow green, O thrush, 

O skylark, sing in the blue ; 
Sing loud, sing clear, that the King may hear, 

And my soul shall sing with you 1 



A HOPE. 

IT befell me on a day 

Long ago, ah, long ago ! 
When my life was in its May, 

In the May-month of the year. 
All the orchards were like snow 

With pink-flushes there and here ; 

And a bird sang, building near, 
And a bird sang far away, 
Where the early twilight lay. 

Long ago ! ah, long ago ! 
Youth's sweet May passed quite away 
May that never more is May ! 
Yet I hear the nightingale 
Singing far adown the vale 
Where the early twilight lies, 
Singing sad, and sweet, and strong 
And I wonder if the song 
May be heard in Paradise ! 
9 



AN ANSWER. 

THE wind was very sad among the branches, 

The moon had hid its light ; 
I threw my window open to the darkness, 

And looked out on the night ; 

And thought of all the dear old times together, 

Days sweet for her sweet sake, 
And all I lost in losing her ; till, thinking, 

My heart seemed like to break. 

And O, I said, if I might have some token 

She is, and yet is mine, 
Though but a wind-tossed leaf, my soul would take it 

And bless it, for the sign. 

And lo ! a little wind sighed through the branches, 

The moon shone on the land, 
And cool and moist with the night dew, a leaflet 

Fluttered against my hand ! 
10 



A PERFECT DAY. 

I WILL be glad to-day : the sun 
Smiles all adown the land ; 

The lilies lean along the way ; 
Serene on either hand, 

The full-blown roses, red and white, 
In perfect beauty stand. 

The mourning-dove within the woods 
Forgets, nor longer grieves ; 

A light wind lifts the bladed corn, 
And ripples the ripe sheaves ; 

High overhead some happy bird 
Sings softly in the leaves. 

The butterflies flit by, and bees ; 

A peach falls to the ground ; 
The tinkle of a bell is heard 

From some far pasture-mound ; 
The crickets in the warm, green grass 

Chirp with a softened sound. 

The sky looks down upon the sea, 

Blue, with not anywhere 
The shadow of a passing cloud ; 

The sea looks up as fair 
11 



12 A PERFECT DAT. 

So bright a picture on its breast 
As if it smiled to wear. 

A day too glad for laughter nay, 
Too glad for happy tears ! 

The fair earth seems as in a dream 
Of immemorial years : 

Perhaps of that far morn when she 
Sang with her sister spheres. 

It may be that she holds to-day 
Some sacred Sabbath feast ; 

It may be that some patient soul 
Has entered to God's rest, 

For whose dear sake He smiles on us, 
And all the day is blest. 



THE POET. 

HE walks with God upon the hills ! 
And sees, each morn, the world arise 
New-bathed in light of paradise. 

He hears the laughter of her rills, 
Her melodies of many voices, 
And greets her while his heart rejoices. 

She, to his spirit undefiled, 

Makes answer as a little child ; 

Unveiled before his eyes she stands, 

And gives her secrets to his hands. 

13 



LONGINa 

O FOOLISH wisdom sought in books ! 

O aimless fret of household tasks ! 
O chains that bind the hand and mind 

A fuller life my spirit asks ! 

For there the grand hills, summer-crowned, 
Slope greenly downward to the seas ; 

One hour of rest upon their breast 
Were worth a year of days like these. 

Their cool, soft green to ease the pain 
Of eyes that ache o'er printed words ; 

This weary noise the city's voice, 
Lulled in the sound of bees and birds. 

For Eden's life within me stirs, 

And scorns the shackles that I wear ; 

The man-life grand pure soul, strong hand, 
The limb of steel, the heart of air ! 

And I could kiss, with longing wild, 

Earth's dear brown bosom, loved so much, 

A grass-blade fanned across my hand, 
Would thrill me like a lover's touch. 
14 



LONGING. 15 

The trees would talk with me ; the flowers 
Their hidden meanings each make known 

The olden lore revived once more, 

When man's and nature's heart were one ! 

And as the pardoned pair might come 
Back to the garden God first framed, 

And hear Him call at even-fall, 

And answer, " Here am I," unshamed 

So I, from out these toils, wherein 

The Eden-faith grows stained and dim, 

Would walk, a child, through nature's wild, 
And hear His voice and answer Him. 



TWO. 

ONE sang all day, more merry than the lark 

That mounts the morning skies : 
One silent sat, and lifted patient eyes. 

One heart kept happy time, from dawn to dark, 

With all glad things that be : 
One, listless, throbbed alone to memory. 

To one all blessed knowledge was revealed, 

And love made clear the way : 
One thirsted, asked, and still was answered nay. 

To one, a glad, brief day, that slumber sealed 

And kept inviolate : 

To one, long years, that only knew to wait. 
16 



FEBRUARY. 

NEWLY wedded, and happy quite, 

Careless alike of wind and weather, 
Two wee birds, from a merry flight, 

Swing in the tree-top, sing together : 
Love to them, in the wintry hour, 
Summer and sunshine, bud and flower ! 

So, beloved, when skies are sad, 

Love can render their sombre golden ; 
A thought of thee, and the day is glad 

As a rose in the dewy dawn unf olden ; 
And away, away, on passionate wings, 
My heart like a bird at thy window sings ! 
17 



MY "CLOTH OF GOLD." 

O BUT the wind is keen, 

And the sky is dull as lead ! 
If only leaves were brown, 

Were only withered and dead, 
Perhaps I might not frown, 

However the storm might beat ; 
But to see their delicate green 

Tossing in wind and rain, 

Whirling in lane and street, 
Trampled in mud and dirt 

Alive to the winter pain, 
To the sting and the hur ! 

I wish they all were hid 
In a fleecy coverlid ; 
I wish I could bury the rose 
Under the northern snows, 
And make the land take off 
The purple and red and buff, 

And flamy tints that please 
Her tropical Spanish taste, 

And mantle her shapeliness, 

Just once, in the delicate dress 
Of her sisters, fairer faced, 

Over the seas. 

18 



MY "CLOTH OF GOLD." 19 

If but for a single day 

This vivid, incessant green 
Might vanish quite away, 

And never a leaf be seen ; 
And woods be brown and sere, 
And flowers disappear : 
If only I might not see 
Forever the fruit on the tree, 

The rose on its stem ! 
For spring is sweet, and summer 
Ever a blithe new-comer 

But one tires even of them ! 

You were pleasant to behold, 

When days were warm and bland, 
My beautiful " Cloth of Gold, " 

My rose of roses, nursed 

With careful, patient hand ; 

So sunny and content, 
With butterflies about you, 

And bees that came and went, 
And could not do without you : 

But better to die at first, 
With the earliest blossom born, 
Than to live so crumpled and torn, 
So dripping and forlorn. 

Better that you should be 
Safe housed and asleep 

Under the tough brown bark, 
Like your kindred over the sea ; 



20 MY "CLOTH OF GOLD." 

Nor know if the day be drear, 
Nor heed if the sky be dark, 

If it rain or snow. 

But ah ! to be captive here, 
The live-long, dragging year, 
To the skies that smile and weep ; 
The skies that thrill and woo you, 
That torture and undo you, 

That lure and hold you so 

And will not let you go ! 



WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME. 

WHEN the grass shall cover me, 
Head to foot where I am lying, 
When not any wind that blows, 
Summer-blooms nor winter-snows, 
Shall awake me to your sighing : 
Close above me as you pass, 
You will say, " How kind she was," 
You will say, " How true she was," 
When the grass grows over me. 

When the grass shall cover me, 
Holden close to earth's warm bosom, 
While I laugh, or weep, or sing, 
Nevermore, for anything, 
You will find in blade and blossom, 
Sweet small voices, odorous, 
Tender pleaders in my cause, 
That shall speak me as I was 
When the grass grows over me. 

When the grass shall cover me ! 
Ah, beloved, in my sorrow 
Very patient, I can wait, 
Knowing that, or soon or late, 
There will dawn a clearer morrow * 
21 



22 WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME. 

When your heart will moan : " Alas ! 
Now I know how true she was ; 
Now I know how dear she was " 
When the grass grows over me ! 



THE MOTHER'S GRIEF. 

So fair the sun rose y ester-morn, 

The mountain cliffs adorning ; 
The golden tassels of the corn 

Danced in the breath of morning ; 
The cool, clear stream that runs before, 

Such happy words was saying, 
And in the open cottage door 

My pretty babe was playing. 
Aslant the sill a sunbeam lay : 

I laughed in careless pleasure, 
To see his little hand essay 

To grasp the shining treasure. 

To-day no shafts of golden flame 

Across the sill are lying ; 
To-day I call my baby's name, 

And hear no lisped replying ; 
To-day ah, baby mine, to-day 

God holds thee in His keeping ! 
And yet I weep, as one pale ray 

Breaks in upon thy sleeping 
I weep to see its shining bands 

Reach, with a fond endeavor, 
To where the little restless hands 

Are crossed in rest forever ! 



RETROSPECT. 

(IN LOS ANGELES.) 

A BREATH of balm of orange bloom ! 

By what strange fancy wafted me, 
Through the lone starlight of the room ? 

And suddenly I seem to see 

The long, low vale, with tawny edge 
Of hills, within the sunset glow ; 

Cool vine-rows through the cactus hedge, 
And fluttering gleams of orchard snow. 

Far off, the slender line of 'white 
Against the blue of ocean's crest ; 

The slow sun sinking into night, 
A quivering opal in the west. 

Somewhere a stream sings, far away ; 

Somewhere from out the hidden groves, 
And dreamy as the dying day, 

Comes the soft coo of mourning doves. 

One moment all the world is peace ! 

The years like clouds are rolled away, 
And I am on those sunny leas, 

A child, amid the flowers at play. 
24 



MARCH. 

HARK, from the budding boughs that burst of song ! 
And where the leagues of emerald stretch away, 
How rings the meadow-lark's ecstatic lay 

And all the hills the liquid notes prolong. 

The stately callas shine, a saintly throng, 
From their broad leaves ; and in her queenly sway, 
The royal rose unfolds unto the day. 

O gentle March ! O turbulent and strong ! 
The dove, the tiger, in thy changeful mood : 
For while the larks sing, and the linnets brood, 

Lo, sullen storm-clouds sweep the smiling dome, 
And roar of winds, and the mad tempest-wrath 
Beat on the blossomed plain, the forest-path, 

And the vast ocean smite to seething foam ! 
25 



AT SET OF SUN. 

ALONG yon purple rim of hills, 
How bright the sunset glory lies ! 
Its radiance spans the western skies, 

And all the slumbrous valley fills. 

Broad shafts of lucid crimson, blent 
With lustrous pearl in massed white, 
And one great spear of amber light 

That flames o'er half the firmament. 

Vague, murmurous sounds the breezes bear ; 
A thousand subtle breaths of balm, 
Blown shoreward from the isles of calm, 

Float in upon the tranced air. 

And, muffling all its giant roar, 
The restless waste of waters, rolled 
To one broad sea of liquid gold, 

Moves singing up the shining shore ! 
26 



TO-MORROW IS TOO FAR AWAY. 

TOMORROW is too far away ! 

A bed of spice the garden is, 
Nor bud nor blossom that we miss ; 
The roses tremble on the stem, 

The violets and anemones : 
Why should we wait to gather them ? 
Their bloom and balm are ours to-day, 
To-morrow who can say ? 

To-morrow is too far away. 

Why should we slight the joy complete, 

The flower open at our feet ? 

For us to-day the robin sings, 

His curved flight the swallow wings, 

For us the happy moments stay. 
Stay yet, nor leave us all too fleet ! 
For life is sweet, and youth is sweet, 

And love ah, love is sweet to-day, 

To-morrow who can say ? 
27 



JUST FOR A DAY. 

JUST for a day to put my sorrow by ! 
Forget that summer dies, that roses die, 

And the swift swallow, circling round the eaves, 

Leaves us with falling leaves. 

Forget the sky shall lose its gold ; the sea 
Grow white in tempests ; and the long nights be 

Forlorn of stars, and dreary with the rains 

Beating against the panes. 

Forget that change is, and that sorrow is, 
That souls grow tired, and sweetest^memories 

In time turn bitter, and the one sure friend 

Is death, that makes an end. 

Just for a day to put aside the years, 

Washed clean of wrongs, of sins, of heavy tears, 

And dream that life is fair, and love a truth, 

And youth is always youth. 

That if the swallow goes, 't is for a day, 
To come again at dawn with merrier lay, 

Learned in the old fair lands, and the rose brings 

New splendors with new springs. 
28 



JUST FOR A DAY. 29 

That God is near, and heaven near, and death 
So far the young heart scarcely reckoneth 

The time by years and years, as now by days 

And the whole earth is praise. 

And faith is as a spotless dove, with wings 
Unclogged with doubt, with many questionings 

Unanswered ; and the heart not yet doth tire 

Of its own vain desire. 

Just for a day to put all sad things by, 

Forget that dreams are dead, that dreams must die 

Joy is a breath, and hope a star that sets : 

Forget, as love forgets ! 



THE MARIPOSA LILY. 

INSECT or blossom ? Fragile, fairy thing, 
Poised upon slender tip, and quivering 

To flight ! a flower of the fields of air ; 

A jeweled moth ; a butterfly, with rare 
And tender tints upon his downy wing 

A moment resting in our happy sight ; 

A flower held captive by a thread so slight 
Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer 
Are, light as the wind, with every wind astir, 

Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite. 
O dainty nursling of the field and sky, 

What fairer thing looks up to heaven's blue 

And drinks the noontide sun, tn*e dawning's dew? 
Thou winged bloom ! thou blossom-butterfly ! 
30 



LOVE IN LITTLE. 

BECAUSE the rose the bloom of blossoms is, 
And queenliest in beauty and in grace, 

The violet's tender blue we love no less, 
Or daisy, glancing up with shy, sweet face. 

For all the music which the forest has, 

The ocean waves that crash upon the beach, 

Still would we miss the whisper of the grass, 
The hum of bees, the brooklet's silver speech. 

We would not have the timid wood-thrush mute 
Because the bul bul more divinely sings, 

Nor lose the scarlet of dear robin's throat, 
For all the tropics' flash of golden wings. 

So do I think, though weak we be, and small, 
Yet is there One whose care is none the less : 

Who finds, perchance, some grain of worth in all, 
Or loves us for our very humbleness ! 
31 



NO MORE. 

NAY, then, what can be done 
When love is flown, 

When love has passed away ? 

Sit in the twilight gray, 
Thinking how near he was, 
Thinking how dear he was, 

That is no more, to-day ! 

How can the day be fair 
Love may not share ? 

How day go by, 
Hearing no fond words said, 
With no dear kisses shed 
O, how can love be dead, 

And yet not I ! 



WHILE LILIES BUD AND BLOW. 

WHILE lilies bud and blow, 

While roses grow, 
And trees wave greenly in the sun, 

Wave greenly to and fro ; 

And ring-doves coo and coo, 

And skies drop dew, 
And th' throstle pipes above the nest 

His wee mate broods upon, 

How can one choose but sing 

Of joy, love everything ! 

While the north wind sobs and grieves, 

While the trees drop leaves, 
And scentless, budless meadows lie 
Bare to the beating rain ; 
And the birds are grown and flown, 

And the nests are lone, 
And love, like closing day, 
Grows cold, grows old and gray 
How can one help but sigh, 
While night draws nigh, 
And darkly runs the river to the main ! 

A little plot where showers 
May bring forth flowers 
33 



34 WHILE LILIES BUD AND BLOW. 

Poppies, mandragora, and all sweet balm ! 
Ah me ! who can but smile ? 
Only a little while, 
And hearts forget to ache, 

And eyes to wake ; 
The grass clasps softly velvet palm with palm 

Above the quiet breast, 
And hope, and God's white angels, know the rest ! 



HOW LOOKED THE EARTH? 

How looked the earth unto His eyes, 
So lately closed on Paradise ? 

Clad all in purity 
Of snowy raiment, as a bride 
That waiteth for her lord to see 
That waiteth in her love and pride ? 

Was the snow white on fields and rocks, 
Whereon the shepherds watched their flocks 

In the midwinter night ? 

And saw the angel, clothed in white, 
The heavenly gates that opened wide, 

In midst whereof was One 

They dared not gaze upon ! 
Snow hither, thither, and afar, 
Beneath the new, mysterious star ? 

Snow upon Lebanon, 
Whose cedars stood, a crystal net 
Of frost-work, beautiful to see ? 

Snow upon Olivet 
Snow upon awful Calvary ? 

Found He it fair to look upon, 
Beneath the wooing of the sun ? 
The turf whereon He trod, 
35 



36 HOW LOOKED THE EARTH? 

Did He not bend his glance to greet ? 
The daisy glancing from the sod, 

The lily slim and tall ; 
The ferny banks of sheltered nooks, 
The singing voice within the brooks, 

Each slender blade of grass that sprang, 
The tender shade of leafy ways, 
Each little bird that sang 
Its wee heart out in praise 
I think He found them sweet, 
He knew and loved them all. 



WITHHELD. 

THEREIN is sunlight, and sweet sound : 

Cool flow of waters, musical, 

Soft stir of insect-wings, and fall 
Of blossom-snow upon the ground. 

The birds flit in and out the trees, 

Their bright, sweet throats strained full with song. 

The flower-beds, the summer long, 
Are black and murmurous with bees. 

Th' unrippled leaves hang faint with dew 

In hushes of the breezeless morn. 

At eventide the stars, new born, 
And the white moonlight, glimmer through. 

Therein are all glad things whereof 

Life holdeth need through changing years ; 
Therein sweet rest, sweet end of tears, 

Therein sweet labors, born of love. 

This is my heritage, mine own, 

That alien hands from me withhold. 

From barred windows, dark and cold, 
I view, with heart that maketh moan. 
37 



38 WITHHELD. 

They fetter feet and hands ; they give 
Me bitter, thankless tasks to do ; 
And, cruel wise, still feed anew 

My one small hope, that I may live. 

And, that no single pang I miss, 
Lo ! this one little window-space 
Is left, where through my eyes may trace 

How sweeter than all sweet it is. 



IN TIME OF FALLING LEAVES. 

THE summer rose is dead ; 

The sad leaves, withered, 
Strew ankle-deep the pathways to our tread : 

Dry grasses mat the plain, 

And drifts of blossom slain ; 
And day and night the wind is like a pain. 

No nightingale to sing 

In green boughs listening, 
Through balmy twilight hushes of the spring 

No thrush, no oriole 

In music to outroll 
The little golden raptures of his soul. 

O royal summer reign ! 

When will you come again, 
Bringing the happy birds across the main ! 

O blossoms ! when renew 

Your pretty garbs, and woo 
Your waiting, wild bee lovers back to you ? 

For lo, my heart is numb ; 
For lo, my heart is dumb, 
Is silent till the birds and blossoms come ! 
A flower, that lieth cold 



40 IN TIME OF FALLING LEAVES. 

Under the wintry mould, 
Waiting the warm spring-breathing to unfold. 

O swallow ! all too slow 

Over the waves you go, 
Dipping your light wings in their sparkling flow. 

Over the golden sea, 

O swallow, flying free, 
Fly swiftly with the summer back to me ! 



I CANNOT COUNT MY LIFE A LOSS. 

I CANNOT count my life a loss, 
With all its length of evil days. 

I hold them only as the dross 

About its gold, whose worth outweighs : 
For each and all I give Him praise. 

For, drawing nearer to the brink 
That leadeth down to final rest, 

I see with clearer eyes, I think, 

And much that vexed me and oppressed, 
Have learned was right, and just, and best. 

So though I may but dimly guess 

Its far intent, this gift of His 
I honor ; nor would know the less 

One sorrow, or in pain or bliss 

Have other than it was and is. 
41 



NOT YET. 

NOT yet from the yellow west, 
Fade, light of the autumn day : 

Far lies my haven of rest, 
And rough the way. 

She has waited long, my own ! 

And the night is dark and drear 
To meet alone. 

Not yet, with the leaves that fall, 
Fall, rose of the wayside thorn, 

Fair and most sweet of all 
The summer-born. 

But O for my rose that stands, 

And waits, through the lessening year, 
My gathering hands ! 

Fail not, O my life, so fast 
Fail not till we shall have met : 

Soon, soon will thy pulse be past, 
But oh, not yet ! 

Till her fond eyes on me shine, 

And the heart so dear, so dear, 
Beats close to mine. 
42 



IF ONLY. 

IF only in my dreams I once might see 
Thy face ! though thou shouldst stand 
With cold, unreaching hand, 
Nor vex thy lips to break 

The silence, with a word for my love's sake ; 
Nor turn to mine thine eyes, 

Serene with the long peace of Paradise, 
Yet, henceforth, life would be 
Made sweet, not wholly bitter unto me. 

If only I might know for verity, 

That when the light is done 

Of this world's sun, 

And that unknown, long-sealed 
To sound and sight, is suddenly revealed, 
That thine should be the first dear voice thereof, 
And thy dear face the first O love, my love ! 

Then coming death would be 
Sweet, ah, most sweet, not bitter unto me! 
43 



IN THE GRAND CANON. 

THE strongholds these of those strange, mighty gods 
Who walked the earth before man's feeble race, 
And, passing hence to their unknown abodes 
In farther worlds, left here their awful trace. 
Turrets, and battlements, and toppling towers, 
That spurn the torrent foaming at their base, 
And pierce the clouds, uplifting into space. 
No sound is here, save where the river pours 
Its ice-born flood, or when the tempests sweep 
In rush of battle, and the lightnings leap 
In thunder to the cliffs ; no wing outspread 
Above these walls, lone and untenanted 
By man or beast, but where the eagle soars 
Above the crags, and by the gates they guard, 
Huge, and as motionless, on either hand, 
The rock-hewn sentinels in silence stand, 
Through the long centuries keeping watch and ward. 
Up from the sheer abysses that we tread, 
Wherein pale shadow holds her mystic sway, 
And night yields never wholly to the day, 
To where, in narrowing light far overhead, 
Arch capping arch and peak to peak is wed, 
We gaze, and veil our eyes in silent awe, 
As when Jehovah's form the prophet saw. 
44 



A SONG OF THE SUMMER WIND. 

BALMILY, balmily, summer wind, 
Sigh through the mountain passes ; 

Over the sleep of the beautiful deep, 
Over the woods' green masses, 

Ripple the grain of valley and plain, 
And the reeds and the river grasses. 

How many songs, O summer wind, 

How many songs you know 
Of fair, sweet things in your wanderings, 

As over the earth you go, 
To the Norland bare and bleak, from where 

The red south roses blow. 

Where the red south blossoms blow, O wind, 

(Sing low to me, low and stilly ! ) 
And the golden green of the citrons lean 

To the white of the saintly lily ; 
Where the sun-rays drowse in the orange boughs, 

(Sing, sing, for the heart grows chilly !) 
And the belted bee hangs heavily 

In rose and daffodilly. 

I know a song, O summer wind, 
A song of a willow-tree : 
45 



46 A SONG OF THE SUMMER WIND. 

Soft as the sweep of its fringes deep 
In languorous swoons of tropic noons, 

But sad as sad can be ! 
Yet I would you might sing it, summer wind, 

I would you might sing it me. 

(0 tremulous, musical murmur of leaves, 

mystical melancholy 
Of waves, that call from the far sea-wall, 

Shall I render your meaning wholly, 
Ere the day shall wane to the night again, 

And the stars come, slowly, slowly ?) 

I would you might sing me, summer wind, 

A song of a little chamber : 
Sing soft, sing low, how the roses grow, 

And the starry jasmines clamber, 
Through the emerald rifts how the moonlight drifts. 

And the sunlight's mellow amber. 

Sing of a hand in the fluttering leaves, 

Like a wee white bird in its nest : 
Of a white hand twined in the leaves to find 

A bloom for the fair young breast ; 
Sing of my love, my little love, 

My snow-white dove in her nest, 
As she looks through the fragrant jasmine leaves 

Into the wasting west. 

Tenderly, tenderly, summer wind, 
With murmurous word caresses, 



A SONG OF THE SUMMER WIND. 47 

O wind of the south, to her beautiful mouth 
Did you cling with your balmy kisses ? 

Flutter and float o'er the white, white throat, 
And ripple the golden tresses ? 

" The long year growethfrom green to gold" 

Saith the song of the willow-tree : 
" My tresses cover, my roots enfold" 

summer wind, sing it me ! 
Lorn and dreary, sad and weary, 

As lovers that parted be 
But sweet as the grace of a fair young face 

1 never again may see ! 



A FANCY. 

I THINK I would not be 

A stately tree, 
Broad-boughed, with haughty crest that seeks the skj 

Too many sorrows lie 
In years, too much of bitter for the sweet : 
Frost-bite, and blast, and heat, 
Blind drought, cold rains, must all grow wearisome, 

Ere one could put away. 

Their leafy garb for aye, 

And let death come. 

Rather this wayside flower ! 

To live its happy hour 
Of balmy air, of sunshine, and of dew. 
A sinless face held upward to the blue ; 

A bird-song sung to it, 

A butterfly to flit 

On dazzling wings above it, hither, thither 
A sweet surprise of life and then exhale 
A little fragrant soul on the soft gale, 

To float ah! whither? 
48 



CUPID KISSED ME. 

LOVE and I, one summer day, 
Took a walk together ; 

how beautiful the way 
Through the blooming heather ! 

Far-off bells rang matin-chimes, 

Birds sang, silver-voicing, 
And our happy hearts beat time 

To the earth's rejoicing. 
Well-a-day ! ah, well-a-day ! 

Then pale grief had missed me, 
And mirth and I kept company 

Ere Cupid kissed me. 

Love ran idly where he would, 
Child-like, all unheeding ; 

1 as carelessly pursued 

The pathway he was leading : 
Till upon the shadowed side 

Of a cool, swift river, 
Where the sunbeams smote the tide, 

Goldenly a-quiver 
Well-a-day ! ah, well-a-day ! 

" Love," I cried, " come rest thee." 
Ah, but heart and I were gay 

Ere Cupid kissed me ! 
49 



50 CUPID KISSED ME. 

Shadows of a summer cloud 

Fell on near and far land ; 
Fragrantly the branches bowed 

Every leafy garland ; 
While with shining head at rest, 

Next my heart reclining, 
Love's white arms, with soft caress, 

Round my neck were twining. 
Well-a-day ! ah, well-a-day ! 

Love, who can resist thee ? 
On the river banks that day 

Cupid kissed me. 

Woe is me ! in cheerless plight, 

By the cold, sad river, 
Seek I Love, who, taken flight, 

Comes no more forever : 
Love from whom more pain than bliss 

Every heart obtaineth, 
For the joy soon vanished is 

While the pang remaineth. 
Well-a-day ! ah, well-a-day ! 

Would, Love, I had missed thee : 
Peace and I are twain for aye, 

Since Cupid kissed me. 



RESPITE. 

SING, lark, far up the sky ! 
Sing, throstle, for love's sake ! 
Sing, sing, as if no heart might ever break ! 

Softly, O summer sigh 
Of winds, let patter down 
The blossom-rain, as if no storms had blown ! 

Smile, flowers, along the way, 
Your dainty presence stirs 
Such blessed thoughts, ye little comforters. 

O earth, for one kind day 
Let me be glad again, 
Forgetting grief that is, and that has been. 
51 



THE SEA-SHELL. 

"AND love will stay, a summer's day ! " 

A long wave rippled up the strand, 
She flashed a white hand through the spray 

And plucked a sea-shell from the sand ; 
And laughed " O doubting heart, have peace ! 

When faith of mine shall fail to thee 
This fond, remembering shell will cease 

To sing its love, the sea." 

Ah, well ! sweet summer 's past and gone, 

And love, perchance, shuns wintry weather, - 
And so the pretty dears are flown 

On lightsome, careless win^s together. 
I smile : this little pearly-lined, 

Pink-veined shell she gave to me, 
With f oolish, faithful lips to find 

Still sing its love, the sea. 
52 



SUMMER PAST. 

Now the summer all is over ! 

We have wandered "through the clover, 

We have plucked in wood and lea 

Blue-bell and anemone. 

We were children of the sun, 

Very brown to look upon ; 

We were stained, hands and lips, 
With the berries' juicy tips. 

And I think that we may know 
Where the rankest nettles grow, 
And where oak and ivy weave 
Crimson glories to deceive. 

Now the merry days are over ! 

Woodland tenants seek their cover, 
And the swallow leaves again 
For his castle-nests in Spain. 

Shut the door, and close the blind : 
We shall have the bitter wind, 

We shall have the dreary rain 

Striving, driving at the pane. 

53 



54 SUMMER PAST. 

Send the ruddy fire-light higher, 
Draw your easy-chair up nigher, 

Through the winter, bleak and chill, 
We may have our summer still. 

Here are poems we may read, 

Pleasant fancies to our need ; 
Ah, eternal summer-time, 
Dwells within the poet's rhyme ! 

All the birds' sweet melodies 

Linger in these songs of his, 

And the blossoms of all ages 

Waft their fragrance from his pages. 



LEAF AND BLADE. 

I AM a lowly grass-blade, 
A fair green leaf is she, 

Her little fluttering shadow 
Falls daily over me. 

She sits so high in sunshine, 

I am so low in shade, 
I do not think she ever 

Has looked where I am laid. 

She sings to merry music, 

She frolics in the light ; 
The great moon plays the lover 

With her through half the night. 

The swift, sweet winds they flatter 
And woo her all the day, 

I tremble lest the boldest 
Should carry her away. 

Only a little grass-blade, 
That dare not look so high, 

Yet, oh ! not any love her 
One half so well as I. 
55 



56 LEAF AND BLADE. 

My little love so happy ! 

My love so proud and fair ! 
Would she might dwell forever 

In the sweet summer air. 

But, ah ! the days will darken, 
The pleasant skies will pall, 

And pale, and parched, and broken, 
My little love down fall. 

And yet the thought most bitter 
Is not that she must die, 

But that even death should bring her 
To lie as low as I. 



THE CAPTIVE OF THE WHITE CITY. 1 

FLOWER of the foam of the waves 

Of the beautiful inland sea, 
White as the foam that laves 

The ships of the Sea-Kings past, 

Marvel of human hands, 
Wonderful, mystical, vast, 

The great White City stands ; 
And the banners of all the lands 
Are free on the western breeze, 

Free as the West is free. 
And the throngs go up and down 
In the streets of the wonderful town 

In brotherly love and grace, 
Children of every zone 
The light of the sun has known : 

And there in the Midway Place, 
In the House of the Unhewn Trees, 

1 In the Midway Plaisance of the World's Fair in Chicago, 
in 1893, there was, by permission of the United States Govern 
ment (so read the record), under guard in the log cabin owned 
by Sitting Bull, and in which that chief and his son were killed, 
the Sioux Indian immortalized by the verse of Longfellow, and 
whose name will go down in history as the slayer of General 
George A. Ouster, in the fight on the Little Big Horn. 
57 



58 THE CAPTIVE OF THE WHITE CITY. 

There in the surging crowd, 
Silent, and stern, and proud, 
Sits Rain-in-the-Face! 

Why is the captive here ? 
Is the hour of the Lord so near 
When slayer and slain shall meet 
In the place of the Judgment seat 

For the word of the last decree ? 

Ah, what is that word to be ? 
For the beautiful City stands l 
On the Red Man's wrested lands, 

The home of a fated race ; 
And a ghostly shadow falls 
Over the trophied 2 walls 

Of the House of the Unhewn Tree, 

In the pleasant Midway Place. 
There is blood on the broken door, 
There is blood on the broken floor, 
Blood on your bronzed hands, 
O Rain-in-the-Face ! 

Shut from the sunlit air, 
Like a sun-god overthrown, 

The soldier, Ouster, lies. 
Dust is the sun-kissed hair, 

Dust are the dauntless eyes, 
Dust and a name alone ; 

1 The Indians claim that the land upon which Chicago is 
built was never fully paid for. 

2 The walls were hung with relics of the fight. 



THE CAPTIVE OF THE WHITE CITY. 59 

While the wife holds watch with grief 

For the never-returning chief. 
What if she walked to-day 
In the City's pleasant way, 

The beautiful Midway Place, 

And there to her sudden gaze, 
Dimmed with her widow's tears, 

After the terrible years, 

Stood Rain-in-the-Face ! 

Quench with a drop of dew 
From the morning's cloudless blue 

The prairies' burning plains 

The seas of seething flame ; 
Turn from its awful path 
The tempest, in its wrath ; 

Lure from his jungle-lair 

The tiger, crouching there 
For the leap on his sighted prey : 

Then seek as well to tame 
The hate in the Red Man's veins, 

His tiger-thirst to cool, 
In the hour of the evil day 
When his foe before him stands ! 

From the wrongs of the White Man's rule 

Blood only may wash the trace. 

Alas, for the death-heaped plain ! 

Alas, for slayer and slain ! 

Alas for your blood-stained hands, 
O Rain-in-the-Face ! 



60 THE CAPTIVE OF THE WHITE CITY. 

And the throngs go up, go down, 

In the streets of the wonderful town ; 

And jests of the merry tongue, 

And the dance, and the glad songs sung, 

Ring through the sunlit space. 
And there, in the wild, free breeze, 
In the House of the Unhewn Trees, 
In the beautiful Midway Place, 
The captive sits apart, 
Silent, and makes no sign. 
But what is the word in your heart, 
O man of a dying race ? 
What tale on your lips for mine, 
O Rain-in-the-Face ? 



WITH A WREATH OF LAUREL. 

O WINDS, that ripple the long grass ! 

O winds, that kiss the jeweled sea ! 
Grow still and lingering as you pass 

About this laurel-tree. 

Great Shasta knew you in the cloud 

That turbans his white brow ; the sweet, 

Cool rivers ; and the woods that bowed 
Before your pinions fleet. 

With meadow scents your breath is rife ; 

With redwood odors, and with pine : 
Now pause and thrill with twofold life 

Each spicy leaf I twine. 

The laurel grows upon the hill 

That looks across the western sea. 
O wind, within the boughs be still, 

sun, shine tenderly, 

And bird, sing soft about your nest : 

1 twine a wreath for other lands, 
A grave ! nor wife nor child has blest 

With touch of loving hands. 
61 



62 WITH A WREATH OF LAUREL. 

Where eyes are closed, divine and young, 
Dusked in a night no morn may break, 

And hushed the poet lips that sung, 
The songs none else may wake : 

Unfelt the venomed arrow-thrust, 
Unheard the lips that hiss disgrace, 

While the sad heart is dust, and dust 
The beautiful, sad face ! 

For him I pluck the laurel crown ! 

It ripened in the western breeze, 
Where Saucelito's hills look down 

Upon the golden seas ; 

And sunlight lingered in its leaves 

From dawn until the scarce dimmed sky 

Changed to the light of stars ; and waves 
Sang to it constantly. 

I weave, and strive to weave a tone, 
A touch, that, somehow, when it lies 

Upon his sacred dust, alone, 
Beneath the English skies, 

The sunshine of the arch it knew, 
The calm that wrapt its native hill, 

The love that wreathed its glossy hue, 
May breathe around it still ! 



LOVE-SONG. 

A BIRD flies over the sea, 
Over the golden sea, 
With a message from me to thee, 
O my beloved ! 

Swift to thy lattice bar, 

My life, my beloved, 
Under the morning-star 
He shall rest where my soul-thoughts are, 

O my beloved ! 

He shall 'light in the viny rings ; 
At thy window fastenings 
He shall beat with his eager wings, 
O my beloved ! 

And ah ! for the wild, sweet note, 

My dove, my beloved ; 
And O for the mad, sweet note 
That shall float from his honeyed throat, 

love, my beloved ! 



THE YEARS. 

WHAT do I owe the years, that I should bring 
Green leaves to crown them king ? 

Blown, barren sands, the thistle, and the brier, 
Dead hope, and mocked desire, 

And sorrow, vast and pitiless as the sea : 
These are their gifts to me. 

What do I owe the years, that I should love 

And sing the praise thereof ? 
Perhaps, the lark's clear carol wakes with morn, 

And winds amid the corn 
Clash fairy cymbals ; but I miss the joys, 

Missing the tender voice 
Sweet as a throstle's after April rain 

That may not sing again. 

What do I owe the years, that I should greet 

Their bitter, and not sweet, 
With wine, and wit, and laughter ? Rather thrust 

The wine-cup to the dust ! 
What have they brought to me, these many years ? 

Silence and bitter tears. 
64 



FROM LIVING WATERS. 

" INTO the balm of the clover, 

Into the dawn and the dew, 
Come, my poet, my lover, 
Single of spirit and true ! 

" Sweeter the song of the throstle 

Shall ring from its nest in the vine, 
And the lark, my beloved apostle, 
Shall chant thee a gospel divine. 

" Ah ! not to the dullard, the schemer, 

I of my fullness may give, 
But thou, whom the world calleth dreamer, 
Drink of my fountains and live!" 

Oh, and golden in the sun did the river waters run, 
Oh, and golden in its shining aU the mellow landscape 

lay, 
And the poet's simple rhyme hlended softly with the 

chime 

Of the bells that rang the noontide, in the city, far 
away. 

And the gold and amethyst of the thin, transparent mist 
Lifted, drifted from the ocean to the far horizon's rim, 

65 



66 FROM LIVING WATERS. 

Where the white, transfigured ghost of some vessel, 

long since lost, 
Half in cloud and half in billow, trembled on its utmost 

brim. 

And I said : " Most beautiful, in thy noontide dream 
and lull, 

Art thou, Nature, sweetest mother, in thy summer rai 
ment drest, 

Aye, in all thy moods and phases, lovingly I name 
thy praises, 

Yet through all my love and longing chaf eth still the 
old unrest. " 

" Art thou a-worn and a-weary, 

Sick with the doubts that perplex? 
Come from thy wisdom most dreary, 
Less fair than the faith wh,ich it wrecks. 

" Not in the tomes of the sages 
Lieth the word to thy need ; 
Truer my blossomy pages, 

Sweeter their lessons to read." 

" Ay," I said, " but con it duly, who may read the 

lesson truly, 
Who may grasp the mighty meaning, hidden past 

our finding out ? 
From the weary search unsleeping, what is yielded to 

our keeping ? 
All our knowledge, peradventure ; all our wisdom, 

merely doubt ! 



FROM LIVING WATERS. 67 

" O my Earth, to know thee fully ! I who love thee, 

singly, wholly ! 
In thy beauty thou art veiled; in thy melody art 

dumb. 
Once, unto my perfect seeing yield this mystery of 

being, 
Once, thy silence breaking, tell me, whither go we ? 

whence we come ? " 

And I heard the rustling leaves, and the sheaves against 

the sheaves 
Clashing lightly, clashing brightly, as they ripened in 

the sun ; 
And the gracious air astir with the insect hum and 

whirr, 
And the merry plash and ripple where the river waters 

run; 

Heard the anthem of the sea that most mighty 

melody 
Only these : yet something deeper than to own my 

spirit willed. 
Like a holy calm descending, with my inmost being 

blending 
Like the " Peace " to troubled waters, that are pacified 

and stilled. 

And I said : " Ah, what are we ? Children at the 

Master's knee 

Little greater than these grasses glancing upward from 
the sods ! 



68 FROM LIVING WATERS. 

Just the few first pages turning in His mighty book of 

learning 
We, mere atoms of beginning, that would wrestle with 

the gods ! " 

" In the least one of my daisies 

Deeper a meaning is set, 
Than the seers ye crown with your praises, 
Have wrung from the centuries yet. 

" Leave them their doubt and derision : 

Lo, to the knowledge I bring, 
Clingeth no dimness of vision ! 
Come, my chosen, my king ! 

" Out from the clouds that cover, 

The night that would blind and betray, 
Come, my singer, my lover, 
Into the golden day ! " 

Oh, and deeper through the calm rolled the ceaseless 

ocean psalm, 
Oh, and brighter in the sunshine all the meadows 

stretched away ; 
And a little lark sang clear from the willow branches 

near, 
And the glory and the gladness closed about me where 

Hay. 

And I said : " Ay, verily, waiteth yet the master 
key, 



FROM LIVING WATERS. 69 

All these mysteries that shall open, though to surer 

hand than mine ; 
All these doubts of our discerning, to the peace of 

knowledge turning, 
All our darkness, which is human, to the light, which 

is divine ! " 



SAILED. 

SHINING, sapphire sea ! 
From thy bosom put away 
Every vexing thought to-day ; 
Smile through all thy dimpling spray : 
All that earth contains for me, 
Of love, and truth, and purity, 
Trust I unto thee ! 

O foam-flecked, azure sea ! 
Let thy calm, untroubled waves, 

By the softest gales caressed, 
Rise and fall like love-beats in 

Her timid maiden breast ; 
Let thy dreamiest melodies 

Cradle her to rest. 

O wild, white, mystic sea ! 
Let thy strong upholding arm 

Tender as a lover's be ; 
Let no breath of rude alarm 

Mar her heart's tranquillity ; 
Through the sunshine, past the storm, 
Bear her safe from every harm, 
Once again to me ! 
70 



AT THE DAWN. 

(SONG.) 

AWAKE, beloved ! my heart awakes, 

Though still in slumber lies 
The world ; the pearl of morning breaks 

Along the eastern skies. 
The moon, the stars, that rule the night, 

And look on land and sea, 
A pathway are of luring light 

My spirit walks to thee. 

'Wake ! ere between again shall lift 

The day his lance of flame ; 
From the still shores of dreamland drift 

One hour to love's dear claim. 
O love ! my love ! the shadows part, 

Thine eager arms I see, 
" As for the water-brook the hart," 
So is my soul for thee ! 
71 



OWNERSHIP. 

IN a garden that I know, 
Only palest blossoms blow. 

There the lily, purest nun, 

Hides her white face from the sun, 

And the maiden rose-bud stirs 
In a garment fair as hers. 

One shy bird, with folded wings 
Sits within the leaves and sings ; 

Sits and sings the daylight long, 
Just a patient, plaintive song. 

Other gardens greet the spring 
With a blaze of blossoming ; 

Other song-birds, piping clear, 
Chorus from the branches near ; 

But my blossoms, palest known, 
Bloom for me and me alone, 

And my bird, though sad and lonely, 
Sings for me, and for me only. 
72 



IN THE POUTS. 

CHEEKS of an ominous crimson, 
Eyebrows arched to a frown, 

Pretty red lips a-quiver 

With holding their sweetness down, 

Glance that is never lifted 

From the hands that, in cruel play, 
Are tearing the white-rose petals, 

And tossing their hearts away. 

Only to think that a whisper, 

An idle, meaningless jest, 
Should stir such a world of passion 

In a dear, little, loving breast ! 

Yet ever for such light trifles 
Will lover and lass fall out, 

And the humblest lad grow haughty, 
And the gentlest maiden pout. 

Of course, I must sue for pardon, 
For what I can hardly say 

But, deaf to opposing reason, 
A woman will have her way ; 



74 IN THE POUTS. 

And when in despite of frowning, 
The scorn, the grief, and the rue, 

She looks so bewitchingly pretty, 
Why, what can a fellow do ? 



TWO PICTURES. 

MORNING. 

As in a quiet dream, 
The mighty waters seem ; 
Scarcely a ripple shows 
Upon their blue repose. 

The sea-gulls smoothly ride 
Upon the drowsy tide, 
And a white sail doth sleep 
Far out upon the deep. 

A dreamy purple fills 
The hollows of the hills ; 
A single cloud floats through 
The sky's serenest blue ; 

And far beyond the Gate, 
The massed vapors wait, 
White as the walls that ring 
The City of the King. 

There is no sound, no word, 
Only a happy bird 
75 



76 TWO PICTURES. 

Trills to her nestling young, 
A little sleepy song. 

This is the holy calm ; 
The heavens dropping halm ; 
The Love made manifest, 
And near ; the perfect rest. 



EVENING. 

The day grows wan and cold ; 
In through the Gate of Gold 
The restless vapors glide, 
Like ghosts upon the tide. 

The brown hird folds her wing, 
Sad, with no song to sing. 
Along the streets the dust 
Blows sharp with sudden gust. 

The night comes, chill and gray ; 
Over the sullen bay, 
What mournful echoes pass 
From lonely Alcatraz ! 

O bell, with solemn toll, 
As for a passing soul, 
As for a soul that waits, 
In vain, at heaven's gates ! 



TWO PICTURES. 11 

This is the utter blight ; 
The sorrow infinite 
Of earth ; the closing wave, 
The parting, and the grave. 



AT REST. 

(B. P. A.) 

GOD rest thy soul ! 
O kind and pure, 

Tender of heart, yet strong to wield control, 
And to endure ! 

Close the clear eyes : 
No greater woe 

Earth's patient heart, than when a good man dies, 
Can ever know. 

9 ' 

With us is night, 
Toil without rest, 

But where thy gentle spirit walks in light, 
The ways are blest. 

God's peace be thine ! 
God's perfect peace ! 
Thy meed of faithful service, until time 
And death shall cease. 
78 



LONELINESS. 

THE waning moon was up, the stars 
Were faint, and very few ; 

The vines about the window-sill 
Were wet with falling dew ; 

A little cloud before the wind 
Was drifting down the west ; 

I heard the moaning of the sea 
In its unquiet rest ; 

Until, I know not from what grief, 
Or thought of other years, 

The hand I leaned upon was cold 
And wet with falling tears. 
79 



BESIDE THE DEAD. 

IT must be sweet, O thou, my dead, to lie 
With hands that folded are from every task ; 

Sealed with the seal of the great mystery, 
The lips that nothing answer, nothing ask. 

The life-long struggle ended ; ended quite 
The weariness of patience, and of pain, 
And the eyes closed to open not again 

On desolate dawn or dreariness of night. 

It must be sweet to slumber and forget ; 
To have the poor tired heart so still at last : 

Done with all yearning, done with all regret, 
Doubt, fear, hope, sorrow, ajl forever past : 

Past all the hours, or slow of wing or fleet 

It must be sweet, it must be very sweet ! 
80 



THE KOAD TO SCHOOL. 

A MEADOW greenly carpeted ; 

A strip of woodland, brown and cool, 
Through which the wandering pathway led 

Unto the village school : 

The little pathway he and I, 
Across the happy summer-land, 

In happy summer-times gone by, 
Trod, daily, hand in hand. 

The mountain stream, far off, that drew 
Its glittering length across the farm, 

Reached softly down the vale, and threw 
The path one cool, white arm ; 

And careless as the truant tide 
That flashed its crystal in the sun, 

Or slipped along the woodland side, 
Our wayward feet would run. 

Through tangled ferns, up furzy slopes, 
Where the broad forest shadows fell, 
Through golden seas of buttercups, 
Wind-rippled, down the dell ; 
81 



82 THE ROAD TO SCHOOL. 

We plashed the foamy water-brink, 
We followed on the rabbit's track, 

And rang the merry bobolink 
His saucy challenge back. 

How tenderly, from stone to stone, 

Where the deep stream ran swift and clear, 

He led my timid footsteps on 
My gay, young cavalier ! 

He knew each haunt of bird and bee ; 

The secret of each nestling brood ; 
He mimicked every melody 

That thrilled the listening wood ; 

With many a carved and quaint design, 
Would fashion acorns into beads, 

Chains of the needles of the pine, 
And whistles out of reeds. 

Ah ! many a time the brave voice spake, 
An earnest pleader in my cause, 

The tanned, round hand went out to take 
Dire strokes for broken laws ; 

And many a prompting, timely said, 
The master's dreaded anger turned 

From the small, idle, flaxen head 
Whose tasks were yet unlearned. 



THE ROAD TO SCHOOL. 83 

What quaint, sweet summer gifts he brought ! 

A white pond-lily, filled to th' brim 
With scarlet berries ; buds, half shut ; 

Gold fruits on leaf and limb ; 

Some wide-blown flower with tawny dyes ; 

A butterfly with jeweled wing, 
Or captive bird, with frighted eyes 

And wee heart, fluttering. 

Dear playmate ! in those golden ways 

Your heart found rest, my heart endures ; 

But, through the weary days and days, 
Life gives no love like yours. 

Life gives no faith ! Ah, child-mate dear, 
When the appointed years shall fall 

From off me, as a cloud, and near 
And clear I hear the call 

And the new way is strange to me, 

Reach thou, and lead me, hand in hand, 

As down the path of old, till we 
Before the Master stand : 

There yet once more thy brave voice raise, 
O playmate ! in thy truant's cause, 

For tasks unlearned, for wasted days, 
For all His broken laws. 



SIESTA. 

IF I lie at ease in the cradling trees, 
Till the day drops down in the golden seas, 
Till the light shall die from the warm, wide sky, 
And the cool night cover me what care I ? 

All as one when the day is done, 
The woven woof or the web unspun : 
In my leafy nest I will lie at rest, 
A careless dreamer, and that is best. 

Does a brown eye wake for a trouble's sake, 
Ye little tenants of wood and brake ? 
What deeper woe does a wild-bee know 
Than to vex the heart of a honey-blow ? 

Bonny birds, sing to me, butterflies, wing to me, 
Slender convolvulus, flutter and cling to me ; 
Dim spice-odors and meadow-musk 
Blow about me from dawn to dusk ! 

Though the city frown from her hill-tops brown, 
And the weary toilers go up and down, 
I will lie at rest in my leafy nest, 
A careless dreamer, and that is best. 
84 



THE DAY OF OUR LORD. 

THE chime of many bells upon the air 

Calling to halls of prayer, 
And, from the street, 
A child's laugh, shrill and sweet, 

Break in upon my silence, and the thought 

The day has brought. 

Christ's Day ! The sacred morn 

Whereon, long centuries past, the Lord was born. 

With the deep-toning bells, 

The organs' sinks and swells, 
The churches' pageantry, 
The song, the feasting and festivity 

How many think of Thee ? 

Of Thee, and this Thy day, 

And all the solemn story which it tells ? 

Do I ? I look within 

On mine own sin ; 

I do not need to gaze without, to find 

The mote that makes another's vision blind, 

Or seek along strange ways 

For burdens that make weary all the days. 
I know Whose willing breast 

Would bear my load ; 
85 



86 THE DAY OF OUR LORD. 

I know Whose clasp, most blest, 
Would lead the feet that stumble on the road ; 
I know His sure abode, 

And hear, unceasingly, 

The call, "Come unto me, 

And I will give you rest ! " 

We know . . . and answer not ! 
The fiercest fights are fought, 

Not between nations, nor 'twixt race and race, 

But in the human soul's still, secret space. 
The pride that yields not unto foe or friend ; 
The stubborn will that breaks not, nor will bend ; 

The vengeful thought where falsehood's cruel 
wrong 

And serpent-fanged ingratitude have stung ; 
The base ambition that would self exalt 

Upon another's effort ; envy, strife, 
The cowardice that dares not own the fault ; 

The vampire, hate, that drains the veins of 

life, 

Of these the forces which the soul engage 
To hold it from its holy heritage : 

Of these the foes, whose multitudes appall, 

That it must meet, to fell them or to fall. 

How hard it seems ! How simple it all is ! 

And oh, the priceless worth ! 
It reckons not of worldly power or pelf, 

Nor of earth-praise the meed. 
The all in all in this 



TEE DAY OF OUR LORD. 87 

His simple creed : 

" Love thou thy God ; thy neighbor as thyself ; 
Forgive, as thou dost hope to be forgiven ! " 
And lo ! we have sweet Heaven 
About us on the earth. 

It is Thy day, dear Lord, 

Help me remember it. 
Help me to live Thy word, 

So living, honor it. 
Help me to thrust away 

My cruel foes, to-day, 

Forever and for aye. 
It is Thy day, dear Lord, 

It is Thy Day ! 



WHO KNOWETH? 

WHO knoweth the hope that was born to me, 
When the spring-time came with its greenery ? 
With orchard blossoming, fair to see, 
With drone of beetle, and buzz of bee, 
And robin a-trill on his apple-tree, 
Cheerily, cheerily ! 

Who knoweth the hope that was dead ah, me ! 
That was dead and never again to be ? 
When the winter came, all dismally, 
With desolate rain on desolate sea ; 
With cold snow-blossoms for wood and lea, 
And the wind a-moan in the apple-tree, 
Drearily, drearily ! 
88 



A NEW LEAF. 

HEBE 's the volume : stain nor blot 

Mars a leaf to-day ; 
Sin and folly, they are not ; 

Sorrow is away. 

Look ! each page is white and clear, 
And 't is morning of the year. 

Of the days that swiftly run 

This will not be mute : 
Good or evil said or done, 

Sweet or bitter fruit, 
What shall be the record, dear, 
At the evening of the year ? 



"UNTO THE DAY." 

SHALL we count the reeds at our feet, 
Or the fluttering, falling leaves ? 
Or number the golden sheaves 

Of the ripening wheat ? 
Reckon the gathered flowers, 

And the moments, all too fleet ? 
Enough to know them ours, 
To know them sweet ! 

Because that a cloud may lie 
Over the morrow's sky, 

Must we miss \ f 

The glory that shines from this ? 

This love that is mine to-day, 
Will it go, will it stay ? 
Must I question, must I weigh ? 
Nay, love, for thou art blind ! 
With wings of the wind, 
With speed of the morning fleet, 
Or, fluttering to rest, 
White dove to her white nest, 

I know not, nor divine. 
Enough to know thee sweet, 
To know thee mine ! 
90 



UNBOUND. 

J. F. B. DIED APRIL 29,1882. 

FORTH from this low estate, 
Fetterless now of fate, 

Pass, spirit blest ! 
Out of the cark and care, 
Out of the griefs that were, 

Into thy rest. 

Done with the dreary round 
Daily thy soul that bound 

From its true aim, 
Little can matter now 
Fame's wreath upon the brow, 

Earth-praise or blame. 

God ! is there of despair 
Keener than this to bear, 

Under the sun : 
Tasked, like a slave in chains, 
While our true work remains 

Waiting, undone ? 

Feeling, as life sweeps by, 
All the pure majesty 
91 



92 UNBOUND. 

Of that we miss ? 
Fettered and tortured so, 
Christ, pity all who know 

Sorrow like this ! 

Not here was given his wage : 
Of his best heritage 

Barred and denied. 
Man of the silver tongue, 
Poet of songs unsung, 

Dreamer, clear-eyed ; 

Slave not to gain or greed ; 
Bound by no narrow creed 

By priestcraft taught : 
In God's fair universe 
Seeing nor hate, nor curse 

Of Him that wrought ; 

Trusting the love divine, 
Careless of church or shrine, 

Blessing or ban ; 
His prayer the common good, 
His faith the brotherhood 

Of man with man. 

And if unto his eyes 
Veiled were the mysteries 

Of the far shore, 
Who of us all may be 
Wiser, in truth, than he ? 

Who knoweth more ? 



UNBOUND. 93 

Never the kindly wit 
Lighter, because of it, 

Sad hearts shall make ; 
No more the earnest thought, 
With its deep lesson fraught, 

Souls shall awake. 

Eloquent eye and lip, 
Peerless companionship, 

Passed from the earth. 
Friend of the many years, 
Well for thee fall my tears, 

Knowing thy worth. 

Flowers on the gentle breast, 
Lay the frail form to rest 

Under the sod. 

Passed from earth's low estate, 
Fetterless now of fate, 

Leave him with God. 



"ONE TOUCH OF NATURE." 

A LARK'S song dropped from heaven, 

A rose's breath at noon ; 
A still, sweet stream that flows and flows 

Beneath a still, sweet moon ; 

A little wayside flower 

Plucked from the grasses, thus ! 
A sound, a breath, a glance, and yet 

What is 't they bring to us ? 

For the world grows far too wise, 

And wisdom is but grief :, 
Much thought makes but a weary way, 

And question, unbelief. 

Thank God for the bird's song, 
And for the flower's breath ! 

Thank God for any voice to wake 
The old sweet hymn of faith ! 

For a world grown all too wise 

(Or is 't not wise enough ?), 
Thank God for anything that makes 

The path less dark and rough ! 
94 



MARAH. 

" THE song were sweeter and better 

If only the thought were glad." 
Be hidden the chafe of the fetter, 

The scars of the wounds you have had ; 
Be silent of strife and endeavor, 

But shout of the victory won, 
You may sit in the shadow forever, 

If only you '11 sing of the sun. 

There are hearts, you must know, over tender 

With the wine of the joy-cup of years ; 
One might dun for a moment the splendor 

Of eyes unaccustomed to tears : 
So sing, if you must, with the gladness 

That brimmed the lost heart of your youth, 
Lest you breathe, in the song and its sadness, 

The secret of life at its truth. 

O violets, born of the valley, 

You are sweet in the sun and the dew, 
But your sisters, in yonder dim alley, 

Are sweeter and paler than you ! 
O birds, you are blithe in the meadow, 

But your mates of the forest I love, 
And sweeter their songs in its shadow, 

Though sadder the singing thereof ! 
95 



96 MARAH. 

To the weary in life's wildernesses 

The soul of the singer belongs : 
Small need, in your green, sunny places, 

Glad dwellers, have you of my songs. 
For you the blithe birds of the meadow 

Trill silverly sweet, every one, 
But I cannot sit in the shadow 

Forever, and sing of the sun. 



THE COMING. 

I GATHERED flowers the summer long ; 

I dozed the days on sunny leas, 
And wove my fancies into song, 

Or dreamed in aimless ease. 

Or watched, from jutting cliffs, the dyes 

Of changeful waters under me, 
The lazy gulls just dip and rise, 

White specks upon the sea 

And far away, where blue to blue 

Was wed, the ships that came and went, 

And thought, O happy world ! and drew 
Therefrom a full content. 

My mates toiled in the ripening field, 
Nor paused for rest in cool or heat ; 

The yellow grain made haste to yield 
Its harvesting complete : 

My mates toiled in their pleasant homes ; 

They plucked the fruit from laden boughs, 
And sang " For if the Master comes 

And find no ready house ! " 
97 



98 THE COMING. 

And far and strange their singing seemed, 
And harsh the voices every one, 

That woke the pleasant dream I dreamed 
To thought of tasks undone. 

Yet still I waited, lingered still, 
Won by a cloud, a soaring lark ; 

Till, by and by, the land was chill, 
And all the sky was dark. 

And lo, the Master ! Through the night 
My mates come forth to welcome Him, 

Their labor done, their garments white, 
While mine are stained and dim. 



They bring to Him their golden sheaves, 
To Him their finished toil belongs, 

While I have but these withered leaves, 
And these poor, foolish songs ! 



MEMORIAL POEM. 

WRITTEN FOB THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, 
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, DECORATION DAY, 1881. 

THE sea-tides ebb and flow ; 

The seasons come and go, 
Summer and sun succeed the cloud and snow, 
And April rain awakes the violet. 

Earth puts away 
Her sombre robes, and cheeks with tear-drops wet 

In some sad yesterday 
Dimple again with smiles, and half forget 

Their grief, as the warm rose 
Forgets the night-dews when the noontide glows. 

Change follows upon change 
Swift as the hours ; and far away, and strange 

As the dim memory of night's troubled dream 

In dawn's returning beam, 

Seem the dark, troubled years, 

The sad, but glorious years, 
Writ on the nation's heart in blood and tears. 

Ah, God ! and yet we know 
It was no dream in those days, long ago : 
99 



100 MEMORIAL POEM. 

It was no dream, the beat 
To arms, the steady tramp along the street 
Of answering thousands, quick with word and deed 

Unto their country's need ; 
No dream the banners, flinging, fresh and fair, 

Their colors on the air 

Not stained and worn like these 

Returning witnesses, 

With sad, dumb lips, most eloquent of those 

Returning nevermore ! 
Of those on many a hard-fought battlefield, 

From hand to hand that bore 
Their starry folds, and, knowing not to yield, 
Fell, with a brave front steady to their foes. 

Year after year the spring steals back again, 
Bringing the bird and blossom in her train, 

Beauty and melody, 

But they return no more ! 

Borne on what tides of pain, 

Over the unknown sea, 

Unto the unknown shore : 

Amid the pomp and show 
Of glittering ranks, the cannon's smoke and roar, 

Tossed in the rock and reel 
Of the wild waves of battle to and fro, 
Amid the roll of drums, the ring of steel, 
The clash of sabre, and the fiery hell 

Of bursting shot and shell, 
The scream of wounded steeds, the thunder tones 
Of firm command, the prayers, the cheers, the groans, 



MEMORIAL POEM. 101 

War's mingled sounds of triumph and despair 
Blending with trumpet-blast and bugle-blare. 

But not alone amid the battle wrack 

They died, our brave true men. 

By southern glade and glen, 
In dark morass, within whose pathless deeps, 

The serpent coils and creeps, 
They fell, with the fierce bloodhound on their track. 

Amid the poisonous breath 
Of crowded cells, and the rank, festering death 

Of the dread prison-pen ; 

From dreary hospital, 

And the dear, sheltering wall 
Of home, that claimed them but to lose again, 
They passed away, the army of our slain ! 

O Leader ! tried and true, 

What words may speak of thee ? 

Last sacrifice divine, 

Upon our country's shrine ! 

O man, that towered above 
Thy fellow-men, with heart the tenderest, 
And " whitest soul the nation ever knew ! " 

Bravest and kingliest ! 

We lay our sorrow down 

Before thee, as a crown ; 

We fold thee with our love 
In silence : where are words to speak of thee ? 

For us the budded laughter of the May 
Is beautiful to-day, 



102 MEMORIAL POEM. 

Upon the land, but nevermore for them, 
Our heroes gone, the rose upon its stem 
Unfolds, or the fair lily blooms to bless 
Their living eyes, with its pure loveliness ; 

No song-bird at the morn 
Greets them with gladness of a day new-born ; 

No kiss of child or wife 
Warms their cold lips again to love and life, 
Breaking sweet slumbers with as sweet release. 

They may not wake again ! 

But from the precious soil, 
Born of their toil 

Nursed with what crimson rain 
We pluck to-day the snow-white flower of peace. 

He does not die, who in a noble cause 
Renders his life : immortal as the laws 
By which God rules the universe is he. 

Silence his name may hold, 

His fame untold 
In all the annals of earth's great may be, 

But, bounded by no span 
Of years which rounds the common lot of man, 

Lo ! he is one 

Henceforward, with the work which he has done, 
Whose meed and measure is Eternity. 

They are not lost to us, they still are ours, 
They do but rest. Cover their graves with flowers 
Earth's fairest treasures, fashioned with that skill, 
Which makes the daisy's disk a miracle 



MEMORIAL POEM. 



103 



No less than man. On monument and urn, 

Let their rich fragrance burn, 
Like incense on an altar ; softly spread 
A royal mantle o'er each unmarked bed, 

And, as a jeweled-rain, 
Drop their bright petals for the nameless dead 

And lonely, scattered wide 

On plain and mountain-side, 
Beneath the wave, and by the river-tide. 
So let them rest 

Upon their country's breast. 

They have not died in vain : 

Through them she lives, with head no longer bowed 
Among the nations, but erect and proud 

Washed clean of wrong and shame, 
Her freedom never more an empty name, 
And all her scattered stars as one again. 



REBUKE. 

" THE world is old and the world is cold, 
And never a day is fair," I said. 

Out of the heavens the sunlight rolled, 
The green leaves rustled above my head, 

And the sea was a sea of gold. 

" The world is cruel," I said again, 

" Her voice is harsh to my shrinking ear, 
And the nights are dreary and full of pain." 

Out of the darkness, sweet and clear, 
There rippled a tender strain, 

; f . 

Rippled the song of a bird asleep, 

That sang in a dream of the budding wood, 
Of shining fields where the reapers reap, 

Of a wee brown mate and a nestling brood, 
And the grass where the berries peep. 

" The world is false, though the world be fair, 

And never a heart is pure," I said. 
And lo ! the clinging of white arms bare, 

The innocent gold of my baby's head, 
And the lisp of a childish prayer. 
104 



AT THE CLOSE. 

YOUTH, that is sweetest, lies still, lies chill in death ! 

Close the clear eyelids upon the tender eyes, 
And hush the pleadings no murmur answereth, 

And still the kisses that waken no replies. 

White-limbed he lieth, dead youth, so strong, so fair, 
And O, for slumber that woke to happy days ! 

And O, the moonlights, the golden dreams that were, 
And O, the glory of life's long pleasant ways ! 

Fair were the faces his eyes have looked upon, 
But these are haggard, and wan, and very sad. 

Sweet the love-laughters, and red the lips he won, 
But here is silence of lips no longer glad. 

So, part the branches, where light falls long between, 
And plait the grasses about his feet and head ; 

Here his loved summer shall wear her softest green, 
And winds just ruffle the fringes of his bed. 

His were the roses washed sweeter in the dew, 
And his the rapture life knoweth not again ; 

But ours the tempest, the skies no longer blue, 
For tender sunlight, and tender, falling rain. 
105 



FREEDOM. 

MINE, to loose or to hold, 

I held it, thus, in my hand. 
Mine, to fetter or free 
Which should it be ? 
Dear little wings of gold, 
Dear little voice that trilled 
All the gay summer long, 
Making each day a song ! 
Well, but one tires at times 
Of even one's favorite rhymes ; 

Of roses, oversweet, 

Of joys that are too complete, 
Of all things in one's reach ; 

And just to be alone 
With silence sweeter than speech, 

Seems best of all things known. 

Mine to command, 
Hold captive, as I willed : 

Little light wings, away ! 

Into the golden day, 

Away, away, 

Into the golden sky 

Good-by! good-by ! 
106 



FREEDOM. 107 

That was a year ago : 

Was it well, was it wiser so ? 

Shall I ever, ever know ? 
A whole long weary year, 
And summer is here : 

But the rose a redness lacks, 

And the sun is chill, 

And the world, somehow, too still, 

And time a dreary tax 

On body and heart and brain. 
Would it be less, I wonder, 

If I could only hear 

A piping, soft and clear, 

A little mellow strain 

Come back again ? 
Or see the flutterings 

Of dainty golden wings, 
That clove heaven's blue asunder, 

Away and away from me 

Away and away, 

On one poor foolish day ? 
Ah, well ! was it so to be, 

And better so ? 
I shall never, never know. 
It is gone let it go. 
But O, for the dear love-strain 
Mine once, mine never again ! 
For the fluttering wings of gold, 
Mine to loose or to hold 
Held lightly, loosened so 
A year ago ! 



FREDERICK TIL OF GERMANY. 

THERE fell a King ! Not king alone in blood, 

Nor royal throne by right of which he reigned, 
But by the royalty of soul unstained, 

And heart that beat but for his people's good. 

A warrior, yet beyond the battlefield 

The larger victories of peace he knew ; 
His life, a pledge to aims divinely true, 

Most patient suffering divinely sealed. 

There fell a King ? Nay, there a king arose ! 

Stars do not set in night, though night goes down 
Steadfast they gleam in heaven's eternal crown 

Though days in nights and nights in days may close. 

" Lord of himself," that greatest conqueror, 
No nobler form in all his noble house, 
Dead, the imperial crown still sits his brows, 

And past the grave he still is emperor ! 
108 



UNGATHERED. 

NEVER a leaf is shorn 

But the vine surely misses ; 
From ministering night-dews torn, 

From the sun's kisses. 

Dozing the warm light in, 

In cool winds rustling greenly, 

A leaflet with its leafy kin 
Dwelling serenely. 

Not ever bud doth fall 

With blighted leaves yet folden, 
Never to wear its coronal 

Or white or golden, 

But from the mother-stem 
Flutters a far, faint sighing : 

Is it a tender requiem 
Above the dying ? 

Who knows what dear regrets 
Cling to the blossom broken ? 

Who knows what voiceless longing frets, 
What love unspoken ? 
109 



110 UN GATHERED. 

So through the summer-shine, 
Your frail, brief lives securely 

Keep, all ye tender blossoms mine, 
Looking up purely. 

Enough to breathe the air 

Made sweet with your perfuming, 

To see through golden days your fair 
And perfect blooming, 

The bees that round you hum, 
The butterflies that woo you, 

And happy, happy birds that come 
And sing unto you. 



THE LOST NOTE. 

IN winter-time one steadfast hope I had : 
When rains should cease to fall, 
And earth re-summon all 

Her blossom-guests, I should again be glad. 

And then, my heart unlifted still, I said, 

Too pallid and too chill 

These skies, wait yet until 
The summer's serene blue smiles overhead. 

Its red the rose surrenders to the leaves ; 

The orchard branches yield 

Their fruit, and far afield 
The reapers sing amid their gathered sheaves. 

The circle of the year is all complete ; 

And in its wintry hour, 

In fruitage or in flower, 
I know the world is very fair and sweet. 

I know that not from land, or sky, or sea, 

The restless spirit takes 

Its sombre hues, and makes 
A discord of God's golden harmony. 
Ill 



112 THE LOST NOTE. 

Within, some false note jars the perfect strain 
The great Musician meant. . . . 
O bird of lost content, 

Come back, and build, and brood, and sing again 



THE UNKNOWN GREAT. 

NOT to the brave upon the battle-field 
Alone, the palms of victory belong, 
Nor only to the great of earth the song 

Of praise and paean should the singer yield. 

Greater the souls, who, single-handed, wield 
The battle-axe against the hosts of wrong, 
Unknown, unnoted, in life's reckless throng, 

And only in God's day to stand revealed. 

Ah, by our side in patient, humble guise, 
How many walk the silent conqueror's way ! - 

As fixed stars in fame's eternal skies 

Their stainless lustre worthiest to shine. 
Unlaureled heroes ! reverently I lay 

Low at your feet this tribute leaf of mine. 
113 



AT PEACE. 

SHUT close the wearied eyes, O Sleep ! 

So close no dreams may come between, 
Of all the sorrows they have seen : 
Too long, too sad, their watch hath been. 

Be faithful, Sleep, 

Lest they should wake, remembering ; 
Lest they should wake, and waking weep, 
O Sleep, sweet Sleep ! 

Clasp close the wearied hands, O Rest ! 
Poor hands, so thin and feeble grown 
With all the tasks which they have done ; 
Now they are finished, every one. 

O happy Rest, 

Fold them at last from laboring, 
In quiet on the quiet breast, 

O Rest, sweet Rest ! 

Press close unto her heart, O Death ! 
So close, not any pulse may stir 
The garments of her sepulchre ; 
Lo, life hath been so sad to her ! 

O kindest Death, 
Within thy safest sheltering 
Nor pain nor sorrow entereth 

O Death, sweet Death ! 
114 



THE ART OF WILLIAM KEITH. 

HERE, vast and awful, the Sierras rear 
Their everlasting summits to the sky ; 
The mighty waters of the sunset lie 

In all their changing opalescence ; here 

The brooding melancholy of the sere, 

Dun autumn woods ; the laughing leafery 
Of budding boughs, blending each tender dye 

With the lush green of the awakening year. 

This is not painted canvas, this is life, 
Creation, earth, in all her varying moods ! 

These fields a-thrill with motion and with light, 

These forest-ways, with dream and mystery rife ! 
Here nature's heart throbs through the solitudes 

Here nature's soul looks from the mystic height. 
115 



THE BROOK. 

THROUGH the dreary winter, 
Ice-locked, white, and chill ! 

All its laughter sleeping, 
All its music still ; 

Not a flower to love it 

From the bank above it ; 
Not a bird to trill, 

In its ripples laving 
Yellow wing and bill ; 

No green, shadowy silence, 
Where one may go at will, 
And dream and dream one's fill. 

Without voice or color, 
In a barren land ; 

Dripping skies bent over, 
Dripping trees that stand, 
Forlorn, on either hand. 

But a little sunshine 
How its voice shall wake ! 

Over sand and pebble 

Ring the silver treble, 
Glad for summer's sake. 
116 



THE BROOK. 117 



Fairy boats shall ride it, 
Lovers walk beside it, 

Birds build in the brake ; 
Flowers and flowering sedges 
Laugh along its edges 

Glad, for summer's sake ! 

Just a little sunshine, 

And the clouds will part ; 
All its fettered beauty 

Into life will start. 
Be glad, thou shining rover, 
With bird, and bee, and clover ; 
Sing summer through and over, 

Ah, happy that thou art ! . . 
Just a little sunshine 

O my heart, my heart ! 



A PRAYER. 

SOUL ! however sweet 

The goal to which I hasten with swift feet 
If, just within my grasp, 

1 reach, and joy to clasp, 

And find there one whose body I must make 

A footstool for that sake, 
Though ever and for evermore denied, 

Grant me to turn aside ! 

O howsoever dear 
The love I long for, seek, and find anear 

So near, so dear, the bliss 

Sweetest of all that is, 
If I must win by treachery or art, 

Or wrong one other heart, 
Though it should bring me death, my soul, that day 

Grant me to turn away ! 

That in the life so far 
And yet so near, I be without a scar 
Of wounds dealt others ; greet with lifted eyes 

The pure of Paradise ! 

So I may never know 
The agony of tears I caused to flow ! 
118 



QUESTION AND ANSWER. 

WHAT gift hast thou for Me, 
The Crucified for thee ? " 
No worthy thing : 
Nor song, nor praise, nor tears, 
From all these many years, 
Jesus, my King. 

" In ways thy feet have sought, 
In that thy hands have wrought, 

Whatso for Me ? " 
Ah, in those dreary walks, 
Behold the flowerless stalks, 

The fruitless tree ! 

"Thy heart hath love, at least 
I crave thy love." O Priest, 

It were not meet 
From bitter wells to slake 
Thy thirst. Touch Thou and make 
Its waters sweet. 

" Thy soul that it may live ! " 
Is it then mine to give ? 
O Saviour, cease ! 
119 



120 QUESTION AND ANSWER. 

Like to a troubled sea, 
My spirit is in me : 

Lord, speak it peace. 

" Unto thy Friend, thy King, 
Hast then no offering, 

No gift to give?" 
For all Thy love, Thy care, 
Only one little prayer : 

Saviour, forgive! 



OBLIVION. 

BEYOND the flight of hours, 
Beneath the rooted flowers, 
Where winter rain, nor showers 

Of April f all, 

Where days that say " Alas ! " 
Forget to come, to pass ; 
And joy or grief that was, 

Is ended all. 

There never sunlight gleams ; 
There sleep hegets not dreams ; 
Therein no voice of streams, 

Nor voice of trees. 
From shadow into sun, 
From light to shadow won, 
No shining rivers run 

To shining seas. 

No birds of morning throat 
Their joy from skies remote ; 
From the still leaves no note 
On either hand ; 
121 



122 OBLIVION. 

No love-lorn nightingale, 
To sing while stars wax pale, 
And moonlight, as a veil, 
Is on the land. 

Many the dwellers are 
Within that valley far, 
Lit by nor sun nor star, 

Where no dawn is ; 
Where sleep broods as a dove, 
And love forgot of love, 
The dead delights thereof 

Can never miss. 

Wherein is spoken word, 
Nor any laughter heard ; 
The eyelids are not stirred 

By touch of tears ;, 
Wherein the poet's brain 
The rapture and the pain 
Of song knows not again, 

Through all the years. 

Pale leaves of poppies shed 
About the brows and head, 
From whence the laurel, dead, 

Is dropped to dust. 
Strength laid in armor down 
To mould, and on the gown 
The mould, and on the crown 

The mould and rust. 



OBLIVION. 123 

So evermore they lie : 
The ages pass them by, 
Them doth the Earth deny, 

And Time forget ; 
Void in the years, the ways, 
As a star loosed from space, 
Upon whose vacant place 

The sun is set. 



LA FLOR DEL SALVADOR. 

THE Daffodil sang : " Darling of the sun 
Am I, am I, that wear 
His colors everywhere." 

The Violet pleaded soft, in undertone : 
" Am I less perfect made, 

Or hidden in the shade 
So close and deep, that heaven may not see 

Its own fair hue in me ? " 

The Rose stood up, full-blown, 
Right royal as a Queen upon her throne : 

" Nay, hut I reign alone," 
She said, " with all hearts for my very own." 

One whispered, with faint flush, not far away : 

" I am the eye of day, 

And all men love me ; " and with drowsy sighs, 
A Lotus, from the still pond where she lay, 
Breathed, " I am precious balm for weary eyes." 

Only the fair field Lily, slim and tall, 

Spake not for all, 

Spake not and did not stir, 
Lapsed in some far and tender memory. 
124 



LA FLOR DEL SALVADOR. 125 

Softly I questioned her, 
" And what of thee ? " 

And winds were lulled about the bended head, 
And the warm sunlight swathed her as in flame, 

While the awed answer came, 
"Hath HE not said?" 



TO-DAY'S SINGING. 

WEAVE me a rhyme to-day, 

No pleasant roundelay, 
But some vague, restless yearning of the heart, 

Shaped with but little art 
To broken numbers, that shall flow 

Most dreamily and slow. 
I think no merry fancy should belong 

To this day's song. 

Look how the maple stands, 

Waving its bleeding hands 
With such weird gestures ; and the petals fall 
From the dry roses, pale, nor longer sweet ; 

And by the garden-wall 

The unclasped vines, and all 
These sad, dead leaves, a-rustle at our feet. 

Dear bodies of the flowers, 
From which the little fragrant souls are fled, 

Beside you, lying dead, 
We say, " Another summer shall be ours 
When all these naked boughs shall flush and flame 
With fresh, young blossoms." Ay, but not the same ! 
And that is saddest. By the living bloom, 
Who cares for last year's beauty in the tomb ? 
126 



TO-DAY'S SINGING. 127 

Spring, blossom, and decay. 

Ah, poet, sing thy day 

So brief a day, alas ! . . . 

Beloved, and shall we pass 

Beneath the living grass, 

Out from the glad, warm splendor of the sun ? 
A little dust about some old tree's root, 

With all our voices mute, 

And all our singing done ? 



FRUITIONLESS. 

AH ! little flower, up-springing, azure-eyed, 
The meadow-brook beside, 
Dropping delicious balms 
Into the tender palms 
Of lover-winds, that woo with light caress, 

In still contentedness, 

Living and blooming thy brief summer-day. 
So wiser far than I, 
That only dream and sigh, 
And sighing, dream my listless life away. 

Ah ! sweet-heart birds, a-building your wee house, 
In the broad-leaved boughs/ 

Pausing with merry trill 

To praise each other's skill, 
And nod your pretty heads with pretty pride ; 

Serenely satisfied 
To trill and twitter love's sweet roundelay. 

So happier than I, 

That, lonely, dream and sigh, 
And sighing, dream my lonely life away. 

Brown-bodied bees, that scent with nostrils fine 
The odorous blossom-wine, 

Sipping, with heads half thrust 
Into the pollen dust 

128 



FRUITIONLES8. 129 

Of rose and hyacinth and daffodil, 
To hive, in amber cell, 

A honey feasting for the winter-day. 
So better far than I, 
Self -wrapt, that dream and sigh, 

And sighing, dream my useless life away. 



AFTER THE WINTER RAIN. 

AFTER the winter rain, 

Sing, robin ! sing, swallow ! 

Grasses are in the lane, 

Buds and flowers will follow. 

Woods shall ring, blithe and gay, 
With bird-trill and twitter, 

Though the skies weep to-day, 
And the winds are bitter. 

Though deep call unto deep 

As calls the thunder, f 
And white the billows leap 

The tempest under ; 

Softly the waves shall come 
Up the long, bright beaches, 

With dainty flowers of foam 
And tenderest speeches. . . . 

After the wintry pain, 

And the long, long sorrow, 

Sing, heart ! for thee again 
Joy comes with the morrow. 
130 



DAISIES. 

WHEREFORE is it, as I pass 
Through the fragrant meadow-grass, 

That the daisies, nestling shyly in sweet places, 
Lifting crispy, curly heads 
From their wee, warm clover-beds, 

Seem to my imagining little elfin faces ? 

Can it be the daisies speak ? 

Leaning rosy cheek to cheek, 
In a merry gossiping, lightly nodding after ? 

Or a fancy, that I heard 

Just the faintest whispered word, 
And a silver-echoing ripple of soft laughter ? 
131 



AN EMBLEM. 

I WAITED for a single flower to blow, 

While all about me flowers were running wild : 
Gold-hearted kingcups, sunnily that smiled, 
And daisies, like fresh-fallen flakes of snow, 
And rarest violets, sweet whole colonies 
Nestled in shady grasses by the brooks, 
That sang, for love of them and their sweet looks, 
Delicious melodies. 

Now they are perished, all the fragile throng, 
That held their sweetness up to me in vain. 
Only this single blossom doth remain, 
For whose unfolding I have waited long, 
Thinking, " How rare a bloom these petals clasp ! " 
And lo ! a sickly, dwarfed, and scentless thing, 
Mocking my love and its close nourishing, 
And withering in my grasp. 

O dream ! O hope ! O promise of long years ! 
Art thou a flower that I have nurtured so, 
Missing the every-day sweet joys that grow 
By common pathways ; moistened with my tears, 
Watched through the dreary day and sleepless night, 
And all about thy slender rootlets cast 
My life like water, but to find at last 
A bitterness and blight ? 
132 



HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 

(H. H.") 

WHAT songs found voice upon those lips, 
What magic dwelt within the pen, 

Whose music into silence slips, 
Whose spell lives not again ! 

For her the clamorous to-day 
The dreamful yesterday became ; 

The brands upon dead hearths that lay 
Leaped into living flame. 

Clear ring the silvery Mission bells 
Their calls to vesper and to mass ; 

O'er vineyard slopes, thro' fruited dells, 
The long processions pass ; 

The pale Franciscan lifts in air 
The Cross above the kneeling throng ; 

Their simple world how sweet with prayer, 
With chant and matin-song ! 

There, with her dimpled, lifted hands, 
Parting the mustard's golden plumes, 

The dusky maid, Ramona, stands 

Amid the sea of blooms. ^ 

133 



134 HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 

And Alessandro, type of all 
His broken tribe, for evermore 

An exile, hears the stranger call 
Within his father's door. 

The visions vanish and are not, 

Still are the sounds of peace and strife, 

Passed with the earnest heart and thought 
Which lured them back to life. 

O, sunset land ! O, land of vine, 
And rose, and bay ! in silence here 

Let fall one little leaf of thine, 
With love, upon her bier. 






A GOOD-BY. 

GOOD-BY ! 

Under whatever sky 
Thy pathway be, 
Near or afar, 

Clear be its light of sun, its light of star : 
Bright as the memory 
We hold of thee, 
Good-by ! 

Good-by ! 

Let not our parting sigh 
Be wholly lost in the new words that greet. 

New loves may be as sweet, 
New friends may serve as surely, 
Hold as dearly, love as purely, 
But never hearts may be 

Truer than these whose thoughts go after thee, 
Good-by ! 
Good-by ! 

135 



SUFFICIENT. 

CITRON, pomegranate, 

Apricot, and peach, 
Flutter of apple-blows 

Whiter than the snow, 
Filling the silence 

With their leafy speech, 
Budding and blooming 

Down row after row. 

Breaths of blown spices, 

Which the meadows yield, 
Blossoms broad-petaled, 

Starry buds and small ; 
Gold of the hill-sides, 

Purple of the field, 
Waft to my nostrils 

Their fragrance, one and all. 

Birds in the tree-tops, 

Birds that fill the air, 
Trilling, piping, singing, 

In their merry moods, 
Gold wing and brown wing, 

Flitting here and there, 
To the coo and chirrup 

Of their downy broods. 
136 



SUFFICIENT. 137 

What grace has summer 

Better that can suit ? 
What gift can autumn 

Bring us more to please ? 
Bed of blown roses, 

Mellow tints of fruit, 
Never can be fairer, 

Sweeter than are these. 



TO A NEW BEATRICE. 

(B. G. : BORX JANUARY 28, 1895.) 

ROBED as with petals of the red rose-queen, 
Unfolding in the dawn's awakening rays, 
She stood, a child, before the boy's rapt gaze ; 
And then, a milk-white lily maid, between 
Her noble ladies, smiled, with gracious mien ; 
And then an Angel in the heavenly ways, 
She leaned and drew his soul from death's dark 

maze, 

The lode-star of the mighty Florentine. 
And thou, our Beatrice ! with thy perfect name, 
O daughter of the New World's Italy, 

Be potent still the spell which in it lies : 
A light to shine with clear, unwavering flame, 
And draw the world thy Dante after thee, 
Along the paths which lead to Paradise. 
138 



SOMETIME. 

UNTO the earth the Summer comes again : 

She has, to quench her thirst, the dews and rain ; 

She has glad light about her all life's hour, 

And love for gracious dower. 

She makes the valleys pleasant for the herds ; 
Her seeds and berries ripen for the birds, 

And cool about their nests she deftly weaves 

A screen of tender leaves. 

Her soft, delicious breath revives the land ; 
Her many flowers she feeds with lavish hand, 

Clothes the bare hill, and to the rugged place 

Gives comeliness and grace. 

To all things else she cometh, once a year, 

With strong, new life, with beauty and glad cheer ; 

To all things else : ah ! sometime, it must be 

That she will come to me ! 
139 



FORGOTTEN. 

OH, my heart, when life is done, 
How happy will the hour be ! 

All its restless errands run, 

Noontide past, and set of sun, 

And the long, long night begun, 
How happy will the hour be ! 

Sunlight, like a butterfly, 

Drop down and kiss the roses ! 

Starlight, softly come and lie 
Where dreamful slumber closes ! 

But death, sweet death, be nigh, be nigh, 
Where love in peace reposes ! 
140 



QUEST. 

THE green leaves grow and grow, 
And the birds build in the trees ; 

Ah, sweethearts, could I linger, linger, 
With soul at ease ! 

long, cool vineyard rows, 
The path is blind with heat ; 

With you rest is, and sound of waters, 
And shadow sweet. 

The dry leaves fall and fall ; 
The days grow less in the sun : 

1 falter, fail, and my soul is weary 
The quest unwon. 

It may come with the morn ! 

It may come with the night ! 
O near, far Hope, I follow, follow, 

From dark to light ? 
141 



LINES 

ON HEARING KELLEY's MUSIC OF "MACBETH." 

O MELODY, what children strange are these 
From thy most vast, illimitable realm ? 
These sounds that seize upon and overwhelm 
The soul with shuddering ecstasy ! Lo ! here 
The night is, and the deeds that make night fear ; 

Wild winds and waters, and the sough of trees 
Tossed in the tempest ; wail of spirits banned, 
Wandering, unhoused of clay, in the dim land ; 

The incantation of the Sisters Three, 

Nameless of deed and name, tl^e mystic chords 
Weird repetitions of the mystic words; 
The mad, remorseful terrors of the Thane, 
And bloody hands which bloody must remain. 
Last, the wild march ; the battle hand to hand 

Of clashing arms, in awful harmony, 
Sublimely grand, and terrible as grand ! 

The clan-cries ; the barbaric trumpetry ; 

And the one fateful note, that, throughout all, 
Leads, follows, calls, compels, and holds in thrall. 
142 



SUMMONS. 

O LONG, swinging bells of pomegranate ! 

O orange-buds, falling as snow ! 
O singing of lark and of linnet, 

Singing high in the leaves, singing low, 
Can you sing to my heart, can you win it 

One moment to these, ere I go ? 

What flowers shall be sweeter than these are ? 

What sky shall be blue as this sky ? 
As a fair, fringed girdle the trees are, 

About the green place where I lie, 
And the swarms of the brown honey-bees are 

As clouds over clover and rye. 

But ah ! for the singing of swallows 

What thought, though the singing be sweet ? 

What ease, though the grass of the hollows 
And hills be as down to my feet ? 

Love beckons, the ready heart follows, 
How fleet to the summons, how fleet ! 

And unto the dove, as she cooeth, 

It 's O, for the wings of the dove ! 

And unto the wind, as it bloweth, 

For the pinions and fleetness thereof 

That the feet unto where the heart goeth 
May be swift, may be swift, to my love ! 
143 



IN ADVERSITY. 

FRIENDS whom I feasted in my luxury, 
In sorrow turned from me. 

A hundred servitors, that once did wait 
Upon my high estate, 

Me desolate, forsaken, old, and poor 
Thrust from my own house-door. 

Only that One whom I in joy forgot, 
My fault remembered not, 

And in my tears of late-born penitence 
Drove me not, scorning, hence. 

His strong arm raised me where I prostrate fell ; 
He made my bruised heart well ; 

My thirst He quenched ; my hunger gave He bread ; 
And my weak steps He led 

Through the blind dark of desert sands, to where 
His fresh, green pastures were. 

O, calm and fair the days, and all delights 
Make beautiful the nights ! 
144 



IN ADVERSITY. 145 

O, fair the nights, and beautiful the days, 
Within these quiet ways ! 

What need is there which He may not supply ? 
Familiar steps go by, 

And well-known voices die upon my ear 
But He is ever near ! 

The vision of all beauty and all grace 
Is in His perfect face. 

Sweeter His voice is than the melodies 
Wherewith I lulled my ease. 

Wisdom and truth, and measures of sweet song, 
Unto His words belong, 

And to my lowly roof His presence brings 
Splendor exceeding kings' ! 



MIDWINTER EAST AND WEST. 

No flower in all the land 

No leaf upon the tree, 

Blossom, or bud, or fruit, 

But an icy fringe instead ; 

And the birds are flown, or dead, 

And the world is mute. 

The white, cold moonbeams shiver 

On the dark face of the river, 

While still and slow the waters flow 

Out to the open sea ; 

The moveless pine-trees stan$, 

Black fortressed on the hill ; 

And white, and cold, and still, 

Wherever the eye may go, 

The ghostly snow : 

The vast, unbroken silences of snow. 

I look out upon the night, 
And the darkly flowing river, 
And the near stars, with no quiver 
In their calm and steady light, 
And listen for the voice of the great sea, 
And the silence answers me. 
146 



MIDWINTER EAST AND WEST. 147 

O Sea of the West, that comes 
With a sound as of rolling drums. 
With a muffled beat 
As of marching feet, 
Up the long lifts of sand, 
The golden drifts of sand, 
On the long, long shining strand. 
An opal, rimmed with blue, 
An emerald, shining through 
The pearl's and ruby's dyes, 
And crests that catch the blaze 
Of the diamond's rays, 
Under thy perfect skies ! 

Land of the West, I know 
How the field flowers bud and blow, 
And the grass springs and the grain, 

To the first soft touch and summons of the rain. 

O, the music of the rain ! 

O, the music of the streams ! 

Dream music, heard in dreams, 

As I listen through the night, 

While the snow falls, still and white. 

1 hear the branches sway 
In the breeze's play, 

And the forests' solemn hymns : 

Almost I hear the stir 

Of the sap in their mighty limbs 

Like blood in living veins ! 

The rose is in the lanes, 

And the insects buzz and whir ; 



148 MIDWINTER EAST AND WEST. 

And where the purple fills 

The spaces of the hills, 

In one swift month the poppy will lift up 

Its golden cup. 

And O, and 0, in the sunshine and the rain, 

Kings out that perfect strain, 

The earth's divinest song ! 

My bird, with the plain, brown breast, 

My lark of the golden west, 

Up, up, thy joy notes soar, 

And sorrow is no more, 

And pain has passed away 

In the rapture of thy lay ! 

Up, up, the glad notes throng, 

And the soul is borne along 

On the pinions of thy song, 

Up from the meadow's sod, 

Up from the world's unrest, 

To peace, to heaven, to God ! ' 

And I listen through the silence of the night, 
While the snow falls, still and white. 



THE FADED FLOWER. 

M. C. P. 

WE watched in the dear home-garden 
Our tenderest flower that grew : 

Never a budling rarer 

The sun of the ages knew ! 

And we said, " When our leaves shall wither, 

Our petals shall drop away, 
The grace of this perfect blossom 

Shall brighten our own decay." 

Never the dews shall nourish, 

Never the tender rain ; 
Never the sun's warm kisses 

Shall crimson thy lips again ! 

O heart of our hearts, May-blossom, 

Hope of our lessening day, 
The bloom and the grace and the fragrance, 

Are passed with thy breath away 1 
149 



MILLENNIUM. 

THE night falls, heavy with the coming storm ! 

Far out, the ocean frets against the bar, 
And the cloud-legions, gathering force and form, 

Shut, with closed ranks, all gleam of moon or star. 
Tempestuous darkness ! and unto the dawn, 

Long hours. Ah ! with the passing will there be 
The gold and crimson by the sun-rays drawn, 

Or tempest still, and moaning of the sea ? 

The world is heavy with the coming storm ! 

No nation wars with nation, race with race, 
But where the love-pulse should beat quick and warm, 

Lo ! brother against brother, faoe to face. 
Abel unto the god of blood gives blood, 

Who heeds not the fair fruitage of the land, 
And wrong and rage, of viper-nests the brood, 

Arm Cain with flaming heart and flaming brand. 

Where is the peace that should with thee abide 

O Earth ? Art still beneath the primal ban, 
Availing naught the Holy Crucified ? 

No faith in God because no faith in man ! 
Thy helpless idols help thee not Awake ! 

Arise, and let thy weary burden fall ! 
Captive, the fetters of the ages break, 

And, thrall to Mammon, be no longer thrall. 
150 



MILLENNIUM. 151 

O Spirit of the Holy One, from where 

On high Thou dwellest, lend Thy loving will 
To quell these battle-giants of the air, 

And to the warring waters speak, " Be still." 
Or if from darkness, only, springs the light, 

And but from struggle blessed peace is born, 
Loose all the awful thunders of Thy might 

And hail, the night ! that heralds the glad morn. 



COPA DE ORO. 

(CALIFORNIA POPPY.) 

THY satin vesture richer is than looms 

Of Orient weave for raiment of her kings ! 
Not dyes of olden Tyre, not precious things 

Regathered from the long-forgotten tombs 

Of buried empires, not the iris plumes 

That wave upon the tropics' myriad wings, 
Not all proud Sheba's queenly offerings, 

Could match the golden marvel of thy blooms. 

For thou art nurtured from the treasure-veins 
Of this fair land : thy golden rootlets sup 
Her sands of gold of gold thy petals spun. 

Her golden glory, thou ! on hills and plains, 
Lifting, exultant, every kingly cup 

Brimmed with the golden vintage of the sun. 
152 



EDWIN BOOTH. 

IN vision, I beheld by Avon's side 

The mighty Shakespeare, and a wondrous train 
The vast creations of that matchless brain 

Walked with him through the dusk of eventide. 

Slowly the dim procession, solemn-eyed, 

Therewith the tawny Moor, and Cawdor's thane, 
And, soul most sorrowful, the princely Dane, 

Passed, and repassed into the shadows wide. 

Then, with a sense of overmastering awe, 

And listening heart that scarcely seemed to stir, 
I woke : to lapsing centuries of time, 

To thronged walls, and blaze of lights, and saw 
Not Shakespeare but his grand Interpreter, 
Than thought's great master only less sublime. 
153 



THE FLIGHT OF SONG. 

How may the poet sing 

When Song is far away ? 
He has no charm to bring, 

No power of yea or nay, 
To lure that peerless wing, 

To bid it go or stay. 
How may the poet sing, 

With Song so far away ? 

Bind and her voice is dumb ; 

She droops, she dies. 
Loose her no echoes come 

From her far skies. 
Farther she mounts, and higher ; 

Elate, elusive still, 

She knows alone one will 
Her own desire. 

O lingering delay ! 

When, lo, on one glad day, 
Into the heart she slips 

With swift surprise ! 
Her touch upon the lips, 

Upon the eyes, 

And all life's pulses thrill, 
And all the world is spring 

Is spring in Paradise : 
Then may the poet sing ! 
154 



MEADOW-LARKS. 

SWEET, sweet, sweet ! O happy that I am ! 

(Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that 

sing !) 
Sweet, sweet, sweet ! subtle breath of balm, 

O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of 
the spring ! 

Sweet, sweet, sweet ! O skies, serene and blue, 

That shut the velvet pastures in, that fold the 
mountain's crest ! 

Sweet, sweet, sweet ! What of the clouds ye knew ? 
The vessels ride a golden tide, upon a sea at rest. 

Sweet, sweet, sweet ! Who prates of care and pain ? 
Who says that life is sorrowful ? O life so glad, so 

fleet! 
Ah ! he who lives the noblest life finds life the noblest 

gain, 

The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters 
sweet. 

Sweet, sweet, sweet ! O happy world that is ! 

Dear heart, I hear across the fields my mateling pipe 

and call. 

Sweet, sweet, sweet ! O world so full of bliss, 
For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all ! 
155 






CHRISTMAS EVE. 

PEACE in thy snowy breast, 
O cloud, from storms at rest ! 

Peace in the winds that sleep 

Upon the deep. 

Peace in the starry height : 
Peace infinite 

Through all the worlds that move 

Within His love. 

O all sad hearts, that be 
On land or on the sea, 

God's peace with you rest light 

This Christmas night ! 

And with the souls that stand 
In that dear land 

Where pain and all tears cease, 

Most perfect peace ! 
156 



A MEMORY. 

THROUGH rifts of cloud the moon's soft silver slips ; 

A little rain has fallen with the night, 
Which from the emerald under-sky still drips 

Where the magnolias open, broad and white. 

So near my window I might reach my hand 

And touch these milky stars, that to and fro 

Wave, odorous. . . . Yet 't was in another land 
How long ago, my love, how long ago ! 
157 



FULFILLMENT. 

FOB the fledgeling bird-life stilled, 

Its wings untaught, 
Its music all untrilled ; 
For the poet's voiceless thought, 

The song unsung ; 
For the loving heart unsought ; 
Hope, fair and sweet and young, 

Dead, nor forgot ; 
For the seed that is not sown, 
And the bud that falls unblown, 

What shall atone ? 

c ^C '/, 

Somewhere the seed must spring, 

The song be sung ; 
Somewhere, green boughs among, 
The bird must sing, 
Must brood and build ; 
Somewhere the heart be wooed ; 
Somewhere, far out of pain, 
Hope, fair and strong, again 

Rise from the tomb. 
Somewhere, for God is good, 
Life's blossoms, unfulfilled, 
Must spring from dust and gloom 
To perfect bloom. 
158 



A LAST WORD. 

(TO MY MOTHER.) 

NOT more removed with the long years' increase, 
Through hours when storms upon thy roof of clay 
Have beat, or when the blossom of the May 

Has to the fettered winter smiled release, 

Not from my heart one thought of thee could cease, 
O loved and mourned to-day as on that day 
When from my sight thy presence passed away, 

Thou spirit of all gentleness and peace. 

Nay, in the long, long ways I walk alone, 
Still with me ! on my brow thy touch is laid 

Softly, when all too great my burden grown . . . 
And I shall go, serenely, unafraid, 

Into the dark well knowing what dear tone 
Whose hand to mine O thou beloved Shade ! 
159 



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